


The New Dan Ashcroft

by concupiscence66



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:29:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concupiscence66/pseuds/concupiscence66
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan used to be a self-destructive, hard drinking, chain-smoking, misanthropic mess who hated his horrible job at a crap magazine.  Now he's working a sweet job at a different crap magazine, is getting to know the adult daughter he met two years ago and is in a relationship with his old friend, Jones.  He's mellowed out into a mildly self-destructive, binge drinking, heavy smoking quasi-success.  Life is sweet, and Dan is just waiting for it to all fall apart around his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Approaching Content

It was a bad time to be a magazine, even an ultra-trendy one that was not only aimed at the Shoreditch crowd, but actually created in Shoreditch. The Sugar Ape offices were full of beautiful people in beautiful clothes, and anyone who was anyone attended a Sugar Ape party. The problem was that those fuckers were then going home and Googling the articles about themselves, instead of buying the glossy pages. 

When asked, Jonatton Yeah? would say that he didn't miss Dan Ashcroft. He'd say he'd hired a tramp to sit at Dan's old desk, smelling bad and drinking, while other people wrote his articles - in other words, being Dan Ashcroft. 

He'd said it to Dan's face while they were both off their tits at a press dinner. Dan had called him a cunt and kissed him on the mouth, while cameras clicked away. Ned Smanks got a particularly good shot that ran in E-lite magazine with the caption, "No hard feelings."

xxx

Kevin Alexander was straight out of Cambridge, where his Buddy Holly glasses and bowling shoes had surely identified him as an edgy character: someone capable of telling his father he didn't believe in God, or even of using the drugs. His hair was carefully unkempt, and his handsome face was unlined. He was young, idealistic, and photogenic.

Jonatton Yeah? drained his glass of Scotch. Kevin took another sip, unable to hide his grimace. 

"So... Sugar Ape?"

Kevin looked confused. "Um, yes?"

"Why?"

"Oh, because..." Jonatton could see Kevin mentally regain his footing. "This is the only magazine that is still really reaching an audience. Everyone else is so niche, they're just preaching to their own choir. Sugar Ape is still taking risks, pushing boundaries..."

"Last months we did a special edition, raising awareness of breast health," Jonatton agreed. "Well informative."

Kevin cleared his throat. "Yes, yes. That's the perfect example. The promise of titillation in the form of..."

"Tits."

"Yes, well, it brought in readers with the promise of naughtiness. It's the only way to reach the masses these days," Kevin continued in an earnest tone.

"Showing tits is always a good way to reach the masses," Jonatton agreed. There had been pages and pages of bare breasts. It was a celebration of the mammary gland. 

"Some might accuse Sugar Ape of using exploitation..." 

Jonatton gasped. "They wouldn't?"

Kevin shifted nervously in his seat, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

"Kevin, are you familiar with Dan Ashcroft?" Jonatton asked, glancing at his iPhone. It was shit for calls, but his pictures looked amazing.

Kevin's eyes darted back and forth, like he was racking his brain for the answer.

"Ashcroft... The Rise of the Idiots," Kevin announced, full of pride at having the correct answer. He seemed to think he was on a quiz show, rather than a job interview. 

"What did you think of it?" Jonatton asked, still looking at his iPhone. He wasn't giving the little twat a hint what he was supposed to think.

"If I can be totally honest," Kevin said, winding himself up for a proper speech, "It's a bit self-indulgent. Hipster scene king decrying his followers..."

"Congratulations, Kevin Alexander," Jonatton cried. "You are our new idiot king! Now be a lamb and close the door when you leave."

 

xxx

Silence was like a bucket of cold water hitting Dan in the face, jerking him from a warm, if not quite fuzzy, dream. For most of his adult life, Dan had relied on Jones's blaring music to lull him to sleep. Now that they tried to spend at least a few hours a night in bed together, they had both been forced to re-learn how to fall asleep instead of simply blacking out. Jones had a high profile gig coming up at The Place and had been up late every night, working on his new mixes. His latest fascination was something called 'brostep.' As far as Dan could tell, the purpose of brostep was to make the listener wet himself with fear. The grinding, metallic screeching had been seeping into Dan's dreams (turning them into nightmares), but the sudden silence was worse. Dan was still trying to get his bearings when Jones slid into bed beside him.

"All right, Dan?" Jones mumbled, slapping a quick kiss on Dan's cheek.

"You must be exhausted," Dan hinted, running his hand along Jones's bare hip. Since Claire had moved out, the flat had again became clothing-optional. Jones opted not to wear anything to bed, and very little at any other time. Dan was rather fond of the development, and not just because it saved on the laundry.

They'd been together for nearly two years. That was nearly two years longer than any of Dan's previous relationships had lasted. People sometimes asked Dan what his secret was, and they mistakenly thought he was being romantic when he said, "Jones."

Jones was truly the secret to Dan's relative stability in life. He was eternally optimistic and patient as Dan tried to adapt to the world of monogamy and caring about his career. He'd supported Dan through two efforts to give up booze and three tries at giving up cigarettes. He'd suffered the irritability with endless tolerance, and when Dan inevitably failed, Jones was there to say, "Didn't work out this time, Dan. Not succeeding ain't the same as failing."

Dan certainly didn't consider his failure to ruin his first real relationship a success. He was more inclined to think he hadn't finished fucking up their relationship yet. Life (and self-destruction) was a process.

Jones wriggled closer to Dan with a sleepy sigh. "Mmmm. Nearly finished, though."

Dan kissed Jones's neck. "It's terrifying. I'm sure it will be a big hit."

Jones laughed. "You can't handle anything with more than three chords."

"How many chords are in the sound of a bicycle being run over by a tank?"

"Least four."

Dan laughed into Jones's hair and held him close, pressing his half-mongrel against Jones's bottom. 

"Christ, you're a horny bastard," Jones laughed, before turning around in Dan's arms for a kiss.

"It's the post-dubstep, it does my head in," Dan teased. "It makes me feel excited to still be alive."

"Excited to have a warm body in your bed. You'd spoon Nathan Barley..."

"We agreed not to use that word in the bedroom."

"Sorry, Sir Dick Cheese."

"That's better, but there's still no need for bringing him up in bed. This is supposed to be a safe place."

Dan rolled Jones onto his back, settling in between his thighs. He was certain he would never tire of sex with Jones. His partner was eternally enthusiastic and adventurous. Dan sometimes worried that he didn't have enough to offer for a long-term sexual relationship. He had a skill set (Jones had created a two hour mix devoted to Dan's blow jobs, called DA'sBJs), but he had more enthusiasm than skill. Worshipping Jones like an alabaster god was easy, but he had no skill for romance or pillow talk or creating a fantasy. He just got off on getting Jones off.

"Just grab the slippery stuff. I know what you want," Jones teased before adding in a stage whisper, "At four in the morning. God help the neighbors..."

"As if our neighbors can hear anything but the ringing in their own ears."

Jones looked thoughtful. "I can get pretty loud... You might have to hold back a bit."

"Not likely," Dan growled. It sounded better in his head than out loud (sexy, rather than lame), but Jones looked pleased. One of Jones's many qualities was his ability to not be irritated by everything Dan did and said. It was the quality that had earned him the title of "Dan's first long term partner." It was a dubious honor, but Jones rarely complained.

Normally, Dan liked to take care of everything when he topped Jones. It was part of proving that Dan had something to bring to the table, but he did need to be at work in a few hours, so he let Jones stretch himself with his usual lack of shame. There was nothing that didn't make Dan feel vaguely uncomfortable, but Jones was his complete opposite. Whatever he was doing, Jones was always doing it with his whole body and soul.

Inside Jones, Dan could almost forget that he was supposed to do a television interview in six hours and he was the worst public speaker he knew. Ned Smanks looked eloquent, next to Dan Ashcroft in front of a crowd.

He could almost forget that he had five voicemails from Lenore. Dan spoke to his daughter every week, during his Thursday lunch, through Skype. That was terrific. That was a great way to get to know the adult daughter you've known for less than three years. It wasn't the idea of speaking to Lenore that filled him with anxiety, it was the fact she wanted to talk to him on a day other than Thursday. There was never a good reason for a person to break from their usual pattern. Change was almost invariably bad. 

Making Jones arch his back and yell out his name was nearly enough to let Dan forget that he was supposed to sit down with Claire and Nath... Sir Dick Cheese… so he could write an article about their new social networking website, Breakthrough.

The sight of Jones with his fringe clinging to his sweaty forehead could make Dan forget everything that was troubling him, but then he would end up coming too soon, so he thought about terrible things as he did everything in his power to make Jones forget his own name.

They couldn't be bothered to clean themselves off afterward. Dan was going to have to take a shower in the morning anyway. What harm would a little semen and lube do, other than gluing their bodies together as they slept?

Then Dan would have an excuse to bring Jones everywhere he went.

Jones pulled Dan's head to his chest, so he could hear his partner's pounding heart. The sound had its usual effect, making Dan immediately drowsy. He closed his heavy eyelids and gave in to the comfort of his wet and sticky bed. Before he drifted off, he heard Jones muse, "You're like a fucking puppy with a clock. I love it."

xxx

Sasha had a top of the line makeup kit, paid for by E-lite, specifically created to make Dan Ashcroft look healthy and well rested. Sasha had done some modeling and make-up work in her time, so she knew a few tricks. She had needed them all in the past two years, and she'd had to google a few more. 

She never knew what to expect when Dan rolled in. She hoped for the best but prepared for the worst.

Dan's eyes were puffy and red, and his hair was standing on end, but he'd shaved and his clothes were neat and clean (and buttoned properly).

Dan awkwardly returned her smile. Before becoming his personal assistant, Sasha had worked with Dan for years at Sugar Ape. They were friends, colleagues, and former lovers, and yet Dan always acted as though they'd just met. Wasting her life working the phones at Sugar Ape, Sasha had sometimes fantasized about being with Dan. He was the self-destructive, hard-drinking writer with intimacy issues she'd been dreaming of (but too practical to actually pursue) for her whole life. He would stagger in, hung over and wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day before, and Sasha would internally swoon. With his wild curls and sad eyes, Dan Ashcroft was sexy bag of mess, but Sasha had two children at home. She couldn't waste her time on a manchild.

Sometimes, she would imagine cleaning him up and helping him realize his potential, but whenever she actually tried, Dan fell apart at the seams. Sasha wasn't strong enough to hold Dan together. Now, Dan had Mars telling him what to do and when, Sasha making sure he was where he was supposed to be and roughly on time, his sister to bully and badger him into taking chances, and his daughter's bankbook to make sure he didn't end up homeless. They said that behind every great man was a great woman, but Dan Ashcroft needed at least four women to prop him up. He wasn't quite great, but he was (to quote the many followers of his entirely Sasha-run Twitter account) "fucking cool as shit."

"How are you feeling?" she asked as she pulled some tepid water and a variety of painkillers and anti-inflammatories from her emergency bag. He didn't even flinch when she rubbed hemorrhoid cream under his eyes. In the early days, Dan had fought every effort to make him look presentable, but he had mellowed after being constantly exposed to images of himself. Dan was far from vain, but nobody liked to see themselves looking bloated and tired on the telly. He drew the line at makeup, but fortunately, he knew nothing about makeup. Sasha had plenty of tinted creams and ointments that evened out Dan's skin tone. He even fell for the, "It isn't make-up, it's mineral powder. It's like rubbing vitamins into your skin," line.

Dan closed his eyes and allowed Sasha to do her thing. His skin felt surprisingly healthy. The electric cigarette and the decrease in drinking were helping. His body was no longer chock-full of toxins. He still drank and smoked too much, just not like he was actually trying to kill himself on a daily basis. Maybe it was the daughter, maybe it was the boyfriend. It might even have been the fact he no longer hated his job. Dan wasn't geared towards happiness, but he was approaching contentment.

"How are you feeling?" she asked again, after he had a few pills in him.

Dan grimaced.

"Don't let him bring up Claire. You are not your sister's keeper, and it's insulting to try to use an author of your caliber for cheap sensationalism."

"What if he wants to talk about me pulling off a builder for an article, or the fact that there's a photo of me taking a piss hanging on Madonna's wall..."

"You are a respected author, and those are the scandalous stories of your youth."  
`  
"The pissing pic is only about two years old..."

"YOU ARE A RESPECTED AUTHOR! Stick with that script, and you'll be fine."

Dan suddenly looked like a lost little boy. "Will I? Be fine, that is?"

Sasha had no idea, so she gave him a quick hug. He was stiff and oddly bulky in her arms, but there was a hint of a smile on his face when she let go.

"I'll try not to let you down," he said. "After all, there's a first time for everything."

Sasha could have pointed out the many times Dan had not let her down, but most of those occasions had occurred between the sheets. Or on top of a desk. Or in a deserted stairwell.

Once in a car park, in Jonatton Yeah's car.

So much of their sex life had revolved around their mutual hatred of Jonatton. It had all fallen apart for Sasha when Jonatton had caught Dan going down on Sasha on his desk, and had clearly enjoyed it. Even if Dan hadn't suddenly gone gay for his flatmate, it would still have been over for Sasha. Dan couldn't be a serious romantic partner, and it was hard to get off on Dan being a bad boy when she knew Jonatton was somewhere having a wank for the same reason. 

She was better off with her fiancé, Thomas. He was a wonderful man, and Sasha and her kids loved him dearly. They were planning their wedding for the autumn, and Sasha was completely content.

Except for once in a while, when she thought about all the wonderful bad boys who had caused her nothing but trouble all her life. The bad ones were always so much easier to remember than the nice guys.


	2. Dikipedia and the Fucktards

"Thanks for joining us, Mr. Ashcroft. May I call you Dan?"

"Sure."

He was off to a rousing start. Dan had never got the hang of interviews. The presenter, Michael Something-Smith, had already sat down with Dan and been calling him by his given name for an hour. Why did he suddenly have to pretend he wasn't sure it was acceptable? Why did there have to be so much pretense in life, and especially on the telly?

"Now, Dan, here at 'Live in Shoreditch,' we've been fans of yours for years. Your work at Sugar Ape really got people reading again. When it seemed like the written word was truly dead, you made it cool to actually look at the articles."

It was not a question, and yet Michael was pausing as though Dan were meant to speak.

"Really?" was the best Dan could think of. He'd written a few good articles at Sugar Ape, but most of them had been rubbish.

Michael laughed too hard and too long. "Oh, Dan Ashcroft. Don't you ever change. Now let's get serious, if we can. Your article, 'Rise of the Idiots', really touched a lot of people. It became something of a call to sanity in the cooler parts of Shoreditch, and even parts of Camden, but it wasn't until your sister's stunning documentary 'Down in Londontown' was released that your work earned an international audience."

Again, it was not a question, just a random pause. Dan vaguely remembered when 'Live in Shoreditch' had actually been filmed live. It seemed like the host should have had time to learn that part of interviewing someone was asking questions.

"I suppose so. She's a good sister, that way."

He'd rehearsed that bit with Sasha, the part where he pretended to be a good and appreciative brother. He loved Claire about as much as he was capable of loving anyone, but he was and always would be a shit brother. He was glad her film had been successful, but he still wasn't keen on his work being attached to something so earnest as to celebrate a junkie choir. For a small, independent British film, it had been a huge success overseas. Dan still got fan letters from irony-impaired hipsters all over the world, cheering on his derision of the idiots. 

"I'd say! There are 'Rise of the Idiot' t-shirts, and some kind of game..."

"Idiot Punch," Dan supplied. It was the only part of the whole 'Down in Londontown' fervor that he enjoyed. "I have it on my phone; it's a pretty good game. It was created by Jay Pingu. He went on to make that game that drives people insane."

"Cosmos of Conflict," Michael said, without missing a beat. "I'm sure my viewers remember when that game came out! I don't think I showered for weeks. Idiot Punch isn't quite that addictive, but it's a damn good game for a phone. I wore out a few keys playing it."

"So did I," Dan admitted. The game had a slight story, but to anyone who knew Pingu, it was a game about Pingu punching Nathan Barley in the balls at every opportunity. Nathan Barley, of course, loved it, and it was his efforts to promote the game that had helped make it such a success. Pingu had moved on to bigger and better things, but he still couldn't shake off his 'friendship' with Nathan Barley. It was strange, in a way, to see another side of Barley. Dan had always assumed Pingu was just someone that Nathan exploited - and that was true - but in a weird way, Dan was pretty sure they were actually friends. Nathan was still trying to bleed Pingu dry and get his fingers into everything he created, but was also Pingu's biggest fan. 

"Of course, your sister has been drawing some negative press lately..."

Dan snorted. "No, Nathan fucking Barley is drawing negative press. My sister is just getting hit with crossfire."

Michael's eyes narrowed, and he suddenly looked like a proper reporter. "Well, some say that she is disingenuous in presenting herself as a feminist, while making her money on pornography..."

"That's bullshit," Dan sneered. "Claire isn't presenting herself as anything. She's a successful woman who isn't getting by on her looks. That's not a political statement."

Dan was surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth, and in the right order. Sasha's role-play coaching had actually worked. If only he could practice for everyday conversation.

Michael looked taken aback, but collected himself, "But the fact remains that her projects have been funded by some rather unsavory..."

"Fuck off," Dan snapped. It wasn't a question, but he left a pause.

"I'm... well... I mean to say..."

"What?" Dan couldn't remember the last time he'd had the upper hand in an argument.

"I wasn't trying to offend..."

"Yes you were."

"I was just trying to make the point that the morals of her work..."

"Shut up. You have a problem with her, talk to her."

"Well, hopefully we'll have her on the show..."

"Fuck off! You don't have the balls to ask her any of this. She'd rip you a new asshole and Nathan Barley would film it and make a fortune. Cunt."

Dan stood up and pulled off his microphone. Michael was still talking, but Dan wasn't listening. He'd done his interview, and Sasha had a bottle of whiskey waiting for him offstage.

xxx

It wasn't easy to be a powerful woman in a male-dominated world. Mars had been one of the top editors in the business for years, and yet there were still people who would dismiss her for being feminine and having a bouffant of lavender hair. It was the same in her sixties as it had been in her twenties. Times changed, but people stayed the same.

"How the fuck do you have the balls to attack my talent on your pissant show?" Mars screamed into the phone. "Dan Ashcroft is the voice of his generation, and you use him to try and stir up some over-played, bullshit controversy? What kind of fucktards are running your station? I'm serious, I want the names of these fucktards, because I want some goddamn answers!"

In reality, Dan had come across well in the interview. She'd had Sasha video the whole thing on the sly. If it had gone badly, she would have threatened to sue if they aired the interview. It was a man's world, and men didn't respond to reason. They responded to threats to their balls.

"I will come down there and rip the balls off any little shit who tries to fuck with my boy Ashcroft. We want approval on the final cut, an on-air apology, and I want to see Claire Ashcroft on your show, dick-punching Michael Bowler-Smith, by the end of this month... No, she's not going to literally punch him in the dick, you fucking moron... unless your boy starts pulling the same shit he pulled with Dan."

Mars could see Dan lounging at his desk, drunk as a skunk. He'd be useless for the rest of the day, but Sasha was there to keep him from speaking to anyone. Sasha was a godsend. Mars had originally assumed Dan was just bringing her along as a convenient source of ass. Mars knew what it was like to be a busy, creative type. One of the reasons she'd hired a young Dan Ashcroft was because he had been young and fit and weak-willed. They hadn't so much had an affair as the occasional lunchtime shag. If he didn't talk, if he just looked troubled and underappreciated, he was a good lay. He was a little long in the tooth for her tastes now - men over thirty just took too long to come - but he was still nice to have around. In addition to being a decent writer, he was a throwback to a simpler time. He was the sexually confused, misanthropic, alcoholic writer that was born to write a great novel. He hadn't written it yet, but Mars couldn't look at him and not think of his potential for literary greatness. 

Mars watched Sasha approach Dan. He immediately sat straighter in his seat, like a schoolboy trying to hide the fact that he'd been looking at a girlie mag under his desk. Mars had always been able to keep her people in line, but she liked the way Sasha seemed to be able to keep people in line without yelling. Mars liked to yell, but there were times when it was a strain on her throat. It was also a bitch when she was hungover.

xxx  
Nathan Barley had invested his money wisely. When a big company had come along and bought trashbat.co.ck, Nathan had taken that healthy chunk of change and made it work for him. He was told he was lucky to be out of the business. The dotcom bubble had burst, and no one was making money off of the internet. 

Nathan knew it was a load of shit, but he'd kept his mouth shut as he bought up every porny version of a popular url he could think of. A lot of them were already taken, no doubt by businessmen of a similar acumen, but he was able to procure assorted names like fuckbook, twatter, pussyjournal, amazonsluts, gaggle, dickipedia and boobtube. Nathan Barley did not deal in porn - he simply had an eye for it - but he made a fortune selling the urls to actual porn purveyors. 

Nathan Barley wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he understood the ways of the world. People liked sex, violence, and feeling superior to other people. If you could capitalize on those basic baser desires (what Nathan called the baseric desires), there was always money to be made. Internet trends would change, but until there was a faster way to deliver porn to someone's eyeballs, there would always be money to be made in the world wide web of snatch.

Breakthrough was a gift for Claire. She was always banging on about how there was no money for crunchy granola types to make their 'serious' art. When he'd suggested a fundraising website for surely artsy types, Claire had nearly wet her knickers. People like Claire, Dan, and Jones wanted to be artistic without selling out. Or getting proper jobs. They got by on their looks as much as their talent, but refused to admit it. At least Jones was an honest-to-god street kid. Nathan had heard stories about how pre-Ashcroft Jones had used to lead the scene, back when he'd needed to hustle to survive. Jones had apparently been at all the parties, until a young Dan Ashcroft had convinced him to try a night in. It was Dan that had taught Jones he didn't have to try to be loved. He didn't have to do anything but be the right ratio of talented to attractive to draw people in instead of inspiring their anger. Then Claire had arrived and taught them both that they didn't need to accomplish anything in order to be smug or to look down on others. Claire occasionally played up the Northern, working-class background and mocked Nathan for being posh, but it was an absurd act. Nathan knew he could rely on his folks to help him out of a jam, but the Ashcrofts lived like people who had zero fear of being homeless. Whatever issues they had with their folks, Dan and Claire had never had the drive to work for their survival. Nathan's dad would send him the occasional cheque, but there was no going home for Nathan. 

But Claire was sexy and beautiful, so Nathan had designed (with a bit of help from Pingu) a website intended to help self-indulgent artists get handouts. He'd already been offered several hundred thousand pounds for the site, but he wasn't ready to hand over ownership of his baby with Claire. 

Not when he was certain he could get a million.

 

 

xxx  
"Hi, Dan."

Dan would never be comfortable with how much his name sounded like 'dad.' It wasn't a problem with anyone else. There was (hopefully) only one person on the planet who might call him Dad, and he hoped she never would. Although he cared about Lenore, even loved her, she was still more like a friend than family. His teenaged tryst with the brilliant author Marilyn Arthur had produced a fine young woman with her mother's determination and her father's tiny, shifty eyes. He'd know Lenore for less than three years. For a while, Lenore had lived in London while going to Cambridge. They'd formed something of a relationship and maintained it through regularly scheduled, transatlantic video chats. Left to his own devices, Dan would surely have let the relationship wither and die. Not because he didn't care about Lenore or want her in his life, but because he was Dan Ashcroft. He did not nurture: not his offspring, not his plants, and not his relationships. Like Jones, Lenore took the reigns and forced Dan to do what made him happy.

Every Thursday, Dan considered avoiding their video chat. He could never shake the feeling that he just hadn't done enough that week. It didn't help that Lenore was a relentless overachiever and always had something new to report.

Every Thursday, Dan went through with the conversation because he liked Lenore and she made him laugh. Also because he would be old someday, and he would need her to care for him (or at least write the checks for his care).

Lenore was a stoic by nature. She was given to the occasional dramatic collapse, but most of the time she was focused and thoughtful. Today, her face was composed, but her eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

"Hello, Lenore."

Dan sensed that any question he asked would likely lead to Lenore weeping, so he stayed silent.

"How was the interview?" Lenore asked, her voice cracking, even as her face remained nearly expressionless.

"I told him to fuck off and walked out."

Lenore smiled. "That sounds pretty... badass. Good for you, Dan."

Despite being seventeen years younger than him, Dan almost looked up to Lenore. She was mature, centered, and ambitious in a way he'd never been. He'd always been a bit lost in his life, and Lenore shared his awkwardness and neuroticism, but she had an internal compass. Like Claire and Sasha, Lenore always had a destination. Not a rubbish Nathan Barley-type destination, but a proper one. 

"So..." Dan prompted.

"I'm pregnant," Lenore announced, before bursting into tears. "I don't know what to do! I'm still in school, I have a business to run, the father lives in another goddamn country! What am I going to do?"

Dan watched her cry, feeling grateful for the distance between them. If they were in the same room, he'd have to offer some manner of physical comfort - a hug, perhaps. As fond as Dan Ashcroft was of his daughter, he wasn't really a hugger. Physical contact that didn't end in sex just seemed weird.

Unfortunately, Dan wasn't any better at verbal consolation.

"Oh, so... Ned?"

While he was a complete idiot, Ned Smanks was, strangely enough, the man Lenore seemed to have chosen as a romantic partner. Dan credited the stability of their relationship to the fact that Ned was in another country and they rarely saw each other. Dan respected Ned's talent as an artist, and appreciated that Ned seemed quite infatuated with Lenore. One of the benefits of having Ned working at the same magazine was that Dan could keeps tabs on him. Initially, he'd been looking for Ned to so much as look at another woman, so he could avoid having a grandchild that was half-idiot, but the process of watching Ned like a hawk had actually led to Dan respecting Ned's devotion. He told any woman who approached that he was dating an "American businesswoman" who was "well smart" and a "VIP of the highest order."

"Of course it's Ned's!" Lenore snapped. "He's the only person I don't use... Of course it's Ned!"

Dan was a little reassured that Lenore was at least sleeping with other guys. It was important for a young woman to experiment with men who weren't dumb as a rock.

"Don't say anything. I want to tell him in person," Lenore continued, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"So you'll be coming here?"

Lenore sniffed. "Yeah. I'm going to stay with Claire, don't worry."

Dan was grateful that he wouldn't have to play host, a tad guilty about not wanting to house his own daughter, and utterly miffed that Claire hadn't bothered to tell him that his only child was coming for a visit.

"Does Claire know?" It was a silly question. Claire knew everything. She'd probably known before Lenore.

Lenore nodded. "Yeah. She's been great. You know, talking to me about... options."

"Options?" Dan repeated, before his brain kicked into gear. He never thought well under pressure. "Oh, options."

Lenore grimaced and looked away.

"But... there are options," Dan continued. "I mean, you're only..."

Lenore glared. "Really? You still don't know how old I am? You know when you had sex with my mom, do the math!"

He'd only recently turned sixteen when he'd met the brilliant Marilyn Arthur and spent the summer learning how to be an honest writer (and how to perform cunnilingus). 

"Nearly 24," Lenore supplied with an exasperated sigh. "I know I have options, but... there are just things I would change about the situation. It's not that I don't want the..."

"Baby?"

"That," Lenore agreed.

"You'll make a good mum," Dan said sincerely. Lenore was a born mother. She was organized, energetic, and almost always sober.

"Do you really think so?" Lenore asked in a small voice, before she began to sob. Dan actually felt sorry he couldn't reach out to comfort her. He might have been rubbish at it, but it would have been better than seeing someone look so very alone.


	3. Breakthrough

Lenore was not the only student in her Harvard MBA program who was preparing to inherit a business and just needed to learn how not to run it into the ground. There were plenty of trustfund kids with their lives set up before them. Kids who always had been and always would be rich and strangely powerful, regardless of their talents or efforts.

She was the only one who was actually a CEO of an international corporation. She was an absolute figure head at Lenore Publishing, but with the company, she'd inherited a top notch team of business advisors. The real head of the company was a woman named Erica. Lenore's mother had given her a very important piece of business advice before her passing.

"Hire people with character and pay them what they're worth."

Erica made a shit load of money. Lenore had always been drawn to psychology, and this was one aspect of business she sometimes understood better than her professors. Angry people fuck you over. Lenore kept her people happy, and in return, she was featured in magazines (ones that she didn't own) for being such a tremendous success. A woman under twenty-five making billions (who did not have a sex tape) was a special thing in the naughties. 

She could take a year off from school and stay in London until she had the baby, and then...

Lenore burst into tears. No matter which way she looked at it, she was completely out of her league. If her mother was alive, it would be different. She'd have someone to tell her how to be a mom and a success and if she looked good with auburn highlights.

She hadn't known she was pregnant when she had her hair done. She hoped it looked good since she had no idea what effect the fumes had on her unborn child. If her baby was going to have a third eye, she wouldn't want it to be over a bad dye job.

Lenore dried her eyes and picked up her cell phone. She sent a picture of her straightened hair to Elizabeth. She and Elizabeth had been roommates during Lenore's year in London. They had stayed close after Lenore returned to the states, but she missed their former intimacy. It was Elizabeth who helped her through the trauma of meeting her father for the first time. 

Her phone beeped, Elizabeth had written back.

"OMG! Your highlights look amazing!"

Lenore smiled, immediately feeling pretty. If Elizabeth hated her hair, she would have written, "OMG! You got highlights!"

Lenore sent Elizabeth another text, "I think I'm moving to England."

xxx

Nathan still thought about it every time he saw Dan. It wasn't his first or last blow job, but it was the only one he didn't really regret. There had been childish experiments and there had been career advancing debasements, but when Nathan sucked off Dan Ashcroft, it had really just been for the sake of sucking off Dan Ashcroft. Nathan was almost entirely heterosexual, but Dan was more than a gender. Dan Ashcroft was a transcendent way of life, the epitome of self-destructive cool.

Sometimes Nathan drank hazelnut flavored coffee and the after taste would remind him vaguely of the taste of Dan's come. At the time, he hadn't thought Dan's jizz tasted like hazelnuts, it had tasted like jizz (i.e. fucking gross). It was just a vague resemblance that was enough to put him back in the moment, with Dan hammered, high and vulnerable and turning to Nathan for comfort. 

When he'd accidentally mentioned the blowie in front of Claire (and Doug Rocket and all kinds of important people), she'd gone ballistic. At that point, they hadn't really had sex. She had let Nathan go down on her a couple times after a long night of working on their film (and a few celebratory drinks), but wouldn't reciprocate or let him do anything other than feel her tits a bit as he ate her out. He'd been laying the groundwork, knowing every girl liked a guy who knew how to go downtown, and she'd been softening. 

After finding out he'd taken a detour to her brother's downtown area, Claire had all but posted a 'no trespassing' sign on her body. Even a cheeky feel of her bum would send her into a rage, inspiring her to suggest Nathan do all kinds of gross and unhygienic things with her brother.

It took months before she allowed a shoulder massage, that became a back massage, that became a front massage. Even as he was massaging and sucking on her tits, and she was moaning, the second he tried to jerk himself off, she was ready to bite his head off. She called him a selfish prick and a pervert. It seemed a bit unfair since he'd gotten her off several times without so much as a tug job in return.

But that was how it went with Claire. She always had to be in charge and have the upper hand. Even when she was using Nathan's money, space, equipment and connections, she still had to be the boss. 

"Are you even listening to me?" Claire snapped.

"Course I am, Sugar Muff," Nathan lied.

She rewound the interview, and watched it once again. They both cheered when Dan told Michael Ball-licker-Smith to fuck off.

xxx

Breakthrough was a website for independent artists to get funding for their projects. The artist offered a description of what he/she/they intended to do and how much money would be needed to accomplish that goal, and offer incentives to encourage donations. The site took a percentage in order to run without relying on advertisers, but it was not a profit maker. It was Claire's attempt to give back to the artistic community and Nathan Barley's attempt to be slightly less gross. Naturally, there was controversy because everything involving money had to involve controversy. People argued over who had the right to solicit money intended for start-up projects, and complained that the site was used by people who were already 'successful'. Claire dismissed the arguments as sour grapes since it was up to the artist to find donors, and as Claire well knew, having had some previous success did not guarantee future success.

It was beyond strange to have Dan sitting in front of her with a pen and pad. He'd reviewed her film "Down in Londontown", but there hadn't been any questions involved. He'd simply watched the film and wrote a self-indulgent essay regarding his brotherly feelings and general misanthropy. 

Today, Dan was interviewing Claire for E-lite magazine. She and Dan were finally equals.

Except Dan still had all the fucking power.

"So, Preach, what's your op on the new King of the Idiots at SugaRape?" Nathan asked. "Is he the new you or just another dickhead?"

Claire could see Dan battling between his curiosity and utter disgust. Curiosity seemed to win out. Nathan was appropriately pleased.

"What are you talking about?" Dan asked, looking more paranoid than usual.

"Kevin Alexander! Where you been? Up the arsehole of some DJ?" Nathan waited for a laugh from Dan that never came. Occasionally, Nathan would make a joke so lame and desperate that Dan would laugh and that was enough to feed into Nathan's delusion that they were friends. Claire felt comfortable laying most of Dan's problems squarely at his pampered feet, but Nathan really wasn't Dan's fault. Nathan was a child and simply couldn't understand that there were people he could never win over. Dan never gave Nathan any reason to think they could ever be friends. Sure, he'd let Nathan suck his cock but... Claire couldn't count that as a friendly overture. Plenty of men had made the same offer to Claire and she'd never taken it as a sign of a burgeoning friendship. Men were pigs and Dan was a man as much as Nathan.

"Kevin Alexander is the new head prick at SugaRape," Nathan continued after everyone was thoroughly uncomfortable. "He writes shite articles about shit that is pure 2003. Well derivative."

Claire bit her lip and refused to laugh. Nathan was never funny when he tried, but his naive attempts to sound clever and posh attempts to be street were always hilarious.

"He's been talking shit about you, Preach," Nathan continued, basking in all the Ashcroft attention. "It hasn't made print yet, but everyone knows Jonatton is grooming him to be the new Dan Ashcroft. As if."

Dan pulled a face and shot a concerned look at Claire. For all his failings, Claire loved that Dan still felt sorry for a world that would have a second Dan Ashcroft.

"Great, some asshole is trying to climb his way to the top by climbing over Dan. Why try to have talent when you can just leech off of someone else's?" Claire sneered. Now that she'd had some success, she had her own Kevin Alexanders to deal with. "Everyone is looking for a shortcut. No one wants to put the work in."

"Amen... No. A-people to that. People like us paid our dues," Nathan heartily agreed. He then tried to get a fist bump from Dan. He was unsuccessful.

Dan turned on his recorder and shoved it in Nathan's face.

"Give me some of your quotable idiocy. Claire and I are going to talk," Dan growled. "So... go."

Claire felt sorry for Nathan as he skulked out of the room. He'd done most of the work, but Dan would just make him sound like a useless idiot. Just because Nathan was a useless idiot didn't mean he didn't deserve his share of the credit for their project.

Nathan would give Dan absurd quotes, and would set himself up to be mocked. Then he'd force a laugh and pretend to be in on the joke. Claire had watched the same scene play out a dozen times over the past few years. Dan and Nathan were insufferably stubborn and unwilling to break the routine that tied them to one another. 

"Don't be too hard on Nathan in the article," Claire said as soon as Nathan was out of listening distance. "He's put a lot of work in and he hasn't taken an offer to sell it off."

"Is it true he turned down 400,000 pounds?" Dan asked, his brow furrowed. "Is he waiting for a better offer? He's mental if he thinks he'll get a better offer."

Claire was stunned. Nathan had never mentioned a number. Nathan owned 60% of Breakthrough and therefore had the controlling interest. He could have forced Claire's hand if he really wanted to sell. She had never imagined Nathan was turning down such large sums.

"Forget I mentioned it," Dan sighed. "It's probably B.S. anyway. If Nathan is turning down the big paycheck, it's not because he has a soul. It's because he's looking for more money."

"You don't know Nathan as well as you think, Dan," Claire snapped, still reeling from the information he had offered. Maybe she didn't know Nathan any better than Dan.

"Jesus Christ," Dan groaned. "You're going to end up having his slimy little babies, aren't you? I'm going to be surrounded by baby idiots." 

Claire took the chance to change the subject from her non-relationship with Nathan Barley.

"How are you coping with impending grandfatherhood?" she asked, sincere in her concern. Dan had been prickly enough about his upcoming fortieth birthday without adding the twist of becoming a youngish granddad. Although it wasn't something he was likely to discuss, Claire knew Dan was always keenly aware of his age and what it meant in terms of his Danness. Thirty had been a disaster.

Dan and Claire had been blessed with their father's cheekbones and their mother's soulful dark eyes and rich vocal timbre. Good genes meant it was hard to pin an age to the Ashcroft siblings, and yet they always seemed wise beyond their years. While Claire tried to use her gifts for good, like using the authority in her voice to get people to listen to her when she was the only one talking sense, Dan just stumbled through life with no thought for others. Through his early twenties, he was respected and admired. As he approached thirty, Dan realized what most relatively bright people figure out as they approach thirty. Dan Ashcroft realized he knew almost nothing about anything, and that those people who thought he had something to say were utter fools. He started his thirtieth year looking clean-cut, a bit gangly and bookish, but looking like a man of the world. By thirty-two, he looked like an actual tramp. Passersby would hand him money. Dan had been using drugs and alcohol to deal with his natural shyness and social anxiety since he was fourteen, but he now he needed several crutches to get through his daily life. Even as they spoke, Dan nervously puffed on his electric cigarette like he was interviewing the queen rather than his baby sister. Hard-drinking and chain-smoking gave his fresh-face the lines he seemed to need to feel like a proper adult.

Dan had been climbing back from the shambles of his mid-thirties, but his coping mechanisms had become addictions. He no longer seemed bulletproof.

Dan shrugged.

"Doesn't really have anything to do with me," he said with forced indifference. "I doubt she'll be bringing the baby around for words of wisdom from her old man."

"Granddad Ashcroft didn't have any words of wisdom," Claire reminded him. "Remember how we loved visiting him? He used to give me money to clean his pipe and shine his shoes. He used us as personal valets and we loved him for it." 

"I swiped my first fag off of him," Dan reminisced. "Visiting him is where I learned to drink liquor straight and how to make the bottle look untouched."

"And how to talk your way out of a beating when he took a drink of apple juice flavored whiskey..."

Dan let out one of his rare giggles. It wasn't a chuckle or guffaw. It was a childish, gleeful giggle and it made Claire laugh until her eyes were watering. She fought her instinct to say something about how nice it was to see Dan happy, knowing it would ruin the moment. She just tried to enjoy the cheerful comradery with her brother/hero/rival.

"What's so funny, sugar tits?" Nathan asked, returning to the room and dumping a metaphorical bucket of ice water on the moment. "Are you watching that video of the baby panda sneezing?"


	4. Going Viral

Kevin Alexander had taken a few photography classes and dated several girls who referred to themselves at photographers. He could appreciate the whimsy of 15Peter20's work, but he certainly didn't see what made Dan Ashcroft such a fan. It was easy enough to find the image of Dan Ashcroft pissing against a wall, but the one to see was in Madonna's foyer. Word on the street was that Madonna and Guy had invited Dan and Jones to tea and they'd refused. Kevin had heard a million interpretations of why the Ashcroft-Joneses would turn down Mr. and Mrs. Madonna, but Jonatton Yeah? seemed pretty confident he had the real answer.

"Dan doesn't want to have tea with people who own a picture of his dick. He's a writer, not a Playboy Bunny."

Kevin took a deep breath and approached the artist.

"15Peter?"

The reedy man blinked.

"Kevin Alexander, from Sugar Ape."

"My name is 15Peter20."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You called me 15Peter. That is not my name. I have a name."

Kevin felt like he'd fallen down a rabbit hole. There was no point in trying to get on 15Peter20's good side, so Kevin got right to the point.

"Dan Ashcroft wrote you a glowing review and even posed for you when he worked at Sugar Ape, but he's since changed his tune and called your work proof that there cannot be a loving or just god. What happened?"

15Peter20 gaped like a landed trout before regaining his composure.

"Off the record..." 15Peter20 looked around as though he feared being overheard when his real goal was obviously to attract eavesdroppers. "Danny is a dear, and his comments have brought so much attention to my work..."

Kevin felt a flutter in his stomach. Jonatton frequently called Kevin 'Dan' and made it clear he was supposed to become the new Preacherman for the magazine. Kevin tried to shrug it off and just be himself, but it was hard to be in the shadow of someone he'd never even met. For a half-assed hack, Dan Ashcroft cast a surprisingly long shadow. The more Kevin looked into his predecessor, the less he understood the man.

"Are you saying it's a publicity stunt? You and Ashcroft are still bosom buddies?"

15Peter20 avoided Kevin's eyes as he whispered, "I never said that. You said that."

 

xxx

 

Ned Smanks went to Stanley Knives and had a manicure before Lenore arrived. He wanted to be looking his best. He'd never met a girl like Lenore before, someone who was smart and funny and who had curly hair just like a porcelain doll. He didn't understand half of what she said, but he never felt stupid around her. She taught him new things every day, like what words meant and stuff. It was like dating Wikipedia, only you couldn't change her, so she said a bunch of swear words instead of real facts.

Ned laughed until he cried thinking about how Nathan had changed the Wikipedia entry on sea bass. Nathan Barley was funny as shit.

Ned would have picked Lenore up at the airport, but he couldn't really fit her and her luggage on his bike, so he had to wait until the Ashcrofts were done with her. Claire wanted a little girl time, and Dan probably wanted to give her some wise advice about the world or something.

When she arrived, she was even prettier than Ned had remembered.

"You look well sexy," Ned said as he wrapped his arms around his semi-girlfriend. "You're like… glowing and shit."

He was surprised when she burst into tears, but Ned never really knew what to expect from her, anyway. Lenore was more complicated than a sudoku puzzle. He steered her towards the sofa and held her. He didn't notice when her sobs turned into actual words, but he didn't dare ask her to repeat herself. She always thought he wasn't paying attention, like he didn't care, but he was just a little slow on the uptake sometimes. He'd seen Sixth Sense three times before he'd realized Bruce Willis was dead. He'd just really enjoyed the use of the muted color palette to highlight the drama. 

"... we've been together for a while, and I think we have a lot in common..." Lenore said.

Ned tried to think of things they had in common. They knew some of the same people. They'd both lived in New England AND real England. They both like the Talking Heads, Tori Amos, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. They both liked eating with chopsticks. Sometimes they used chopsticks when they weren't even eating food from Asia.

"...and maybe we should take things to the next level."

"Yeah, the next level," Ned agreed. "I'm already on the top floor of this building, but there's a bigger building right down the street, and that's got a great view of the city..."

"That's not really what I meant."

Ned was not surprised. 

"I'm thinking of moving to England. Permanently." 

"Are you breaking up with me?" Ned asked, before he had a chance to make a fool of himself. Lenore looked confused. She was pretty when she was confused.

"No, Ned. I was trying to say... I really like you, Ned. You get me out of my head, you make me look at things in a different way." Lenore had just said she wasn't breaking up with him, but she was tearing up and sounding like a girl who was breaking up with her boyfriend.

"Thanks, Lenny. You're well cool, and you make me think about stuff and all."

"I'm pregnant."

"Is that why you're crying?" Ned asked.

"What? Yes. No. I'm crying because..." Lenore waved her hands the way she did when she got emotional, like she was actually drowning in her feelings. "I'm keeping the baby. I don't expect you to make any big decision right now, but..."

"Is it mine?" Ned asked, still a little lost.

"Of course, it's yours!" Lenore yelled. "How can you even ask that?"

Ned could tell he was in trouble. "Because you're crying and talking like you're breaking up with me."

Lenore put her face in her hands. She looked like her dad when she was miserable.

"If we're going to have a baby, maybe I should get a ground-floor flat, so we don't have an Eric Clapton situation on our hands. Maybe even a basement flat. I fell out of, like, five windows when I was a nipper. That's why I sport this protective afro."

Lenore raised her head. "Does that mean you want to be a dad?"

It was a strange question, as he didn't really have much of a choice if the baby was already on the way.

"Yeah. I always wanted some kiddies someday, and you'd be a great mum. Hopefully, they'll get your brains and my buttery skin tone."

Lenore was crying again, but now she was hugging him.

"When can we expect our little stranger?" he asked. 

"I'm six weeks along, so it must have been when I came to see you. I don't know if I missed a few doses of my birth control because I was so jet-lagged..."

Lenore had gotten drunk off her ass and dropped a whole pack of birth control down a sewer grate while trying to take it with her bottle of wine in a paper bag. Ned was not surprised she had forgotten that part of the trip. He was a little surprised she remembered coming to visit at all.

"So that means the baby will be here...?"

"Roughly thirty-four weeks."

"Yeah... and what is that in months?"

Lenore frowned. "Eight and a half months."

Ned had started counting on his fingers when Lenore said, "I'm due in December."

"A Christmas baby?" Ned exclaimed. "That is well cool. Righteous."

Lenore was smiling again.

"So, should we get married and shit?"

Lenore bit her lip. "Let's just look for ground-floor apartments first."

"Nice," Ned replied. Because it was.

xxx

Dan's appearance on "Shoreditch Live" went 'viral.' Dan wasn't sure what that meant, but it made him think of Nathan Barley. 

Offers were pouring in, everything from an appearance on Jonathan Ross to Celebrity Big Brother. 90% of the offers were rubbish, but it was good PR for the magazine. E-lite wasn't a great magazine, but Dan had a great job. He wrote about what he wanted, and Sasha buffered him from scary things like phone calls and tax forms. Mars was even encouraging him to write a book, on the clock. She seemed pretty set on him writing a masterpiece, which could be tough. Dan was losing his edge, due to the warm fuzziness of contentment. He still hated idiots, but they no longer plagued him. Even his loathing of Nathan Barley had lost its ferocity. Nathan was the epitome of what was wrong with the world, but he had been a good partner to Claire. He put all his unsavory skills to work and came up with the capital for Claire to support her earnest, world-saving ambitions. If Nathan would simply die tragically young and leave all his money to Claire, Dan would finally respect him. 

Dan was churning out an article on the "Shoreditch Live" debacle when he got an IM from Sasha.

Sasha: You've been offered a book deal.

Dannyboy: From my daughter's company?

Sasha: No, it's a real offer.

Dannyboy: A good offer?

Sasha: Not yet, but give me a few days.

It was good enough news to make Dan contemplate using an insufferable emoticon to convey his joy. When he realized Sasha was watching him from her desk, he gave her a real smile instead. 

Dan had always wanted to write a book, but could never make himself go through the effort of writing one when he was sure it would never be published. Dan was a masochist, but he wasn't that bad.

Dan decided to put aside his column and bask in the glow of his potential success.

And figure out how to change his screen name from Dannyboy back to Dan. It had been a month since Mars had changed it when he'd left his computer unlocked, but he suddenly felt energized and capable of dealing with his boss's fuckery.

xxx

Jones's eyes were closed, a sign he was in his personal heaven. All the time he had put into his set was apparently worth it, because he was moving in the slow and sensual way that meant he was completely happy with his mix. Jones was always beautiful, but when he was lost in his music, he was ethereal. Dan knew it wasn't just the rose-tinted glasses of love. Everyone was staring at Jones. In a town where everyone was a DJ, Jones was a wonder to behold. Dan didn't fully understand Jones's idea of music, but he loved to watch him work. He was a wild thing, surrendering himself completely to the moment.

"What I could do to that man..."

Dan would never know what the nameless man could do with Jones, because the nameless man had just been hit in the face with a tumbler of whiskey. Dan didn't remember hitting him, but it was hard to deny that the broken glass was in his hand.

Sasha stepped in and smoothed things over (by telling the man with a bleeding face that he'd just been assaulted by a YouTube hero). Dan tried to smile as Sasha snapped a photo on the man's iPhone. Dan had a love-hate relationship with technology. The world was just getting stranger as it got smaller. On the other hand, when Mars allowed him to 'work from home,' Dan only had to get out of bed to piss and answer the door for the food delivery. He could go for a week without hearing the sound of anyone's voice other than Jones's. That was a definite plus.

It was Doug Rocket's birthday party. He had two a year: Once for his real birth and one to commemorate his spiritual birth into whatever religion he was currently following. Dan was covering the event for E-lite. Mars sent him to all of Jones' high profile gigs, based on the logic that Dan wrote his best reviews when he "gave a fuck." 

Dan hated celebrity DJs, trendy parties, trendy people, and Doug Rocket, but he loved Jones. And free booze.

Dan made a few notes while he could still think and then moved closer to the tables where he could get lost in watching Jones get lost in his terrifying music.  
xxx

Jones was laughing as he pulled Dan into a deserted office. He'd picked the lock like a regular street thug. Just when Dan thought his lover couldn't get any hotter, he'd do something like jimmy a lock so they could have sex in someone's office. If he didn't love Jones so much, he'd marry him. 

He was all over Jones, snogging him with far more enthusiasm than skill. He wanted Jones to be naked as quickly as possible, but his hands weren't working properly. He had to settle for just groping Jones through his clothes and waiting for his partner to do the hard work.

"Liked the set, did you?" Jones teased.

"Everyone in that room wants to fuck you," Dan pointed out. "It was a good set."

Jones shimmied out of his drainpipes and skintight t-shirt, leaving him in a pair of bright yellow pants.

Dan dropped to his knees, kissing Jones through his pants and inhaling his scent. 

"I got a few offers tonight."

"I'll bet you did," Dan snorted as he pulled Jones's pants off of his slim hips.

"DJ offers, you horny bastard."

The conversation halted when Dan took Jones in his mouth, sucking him off while stroking his own cock. Jones stroked Dan's hair and cheek, his gentleness a contrast to their fairly seedy behavior. That was Jones, always beautifully at odds with everything around him.

"I want you to fuck me," Jones whimpered as Dan fondled his arse.

Dan nearly fell over trying to get his pants down, but Jones didn't seem to mind. He simply leaned over a large and important-looking desk and spread his legs. Dan ripped a small packet of lube open with his teeth and proceeded to finger Jones until his partner was humping the desk and demanding more. Jones had the patience of a saint when it came to his mixes - he would sit on the floor for hours, just listening to the music in his head - but he had no patience in the bedroom.

"I'm ready, Dan," Jones whined. "Now. I have to get back to my tables."

To protect the virtue of Jones's DJ set-up, Dan obliged. It only took a few strokes for Dan to be all the way inside. Jones was digging his nails into the desk, leaving marks. 

"You're thinking about your tables while I'm fucking you?" Dan teased. He well knew Jones was always thinking about his tables.

Jones reached behind him and squeezed Dan's arse.

"Don't tell them, but sometimes I think about you when I spin..."

"Tart," Dan whispered as he wrapped his hand around Jones's cock. Jones groaned and pushed himself back into Dan's hips, nearly knocking them both over. Dan took a moment to be grateful he was getting older. A younger man, or in this case, a younger Dan, would have come shortly after they began. He could thank his stiff hip and bad ankle (souvenirs of jumping out of the office window of Trashbat), for his ability to show restraint while drunk off his tits and shagging in a stranger's office. They hadn't even locked the door.

He whispered, "I love you," which sounded lame, but Jones didn't seem to mind.

xxx

Dan and Jones examined the semen-covered document.

"We can't leave it," Jones whispered. "That would be well unhygienic!"

He watched Dan carefully fold the paper like a tiny parcel. A little care package of semen.

Dan grinned and tucked the paper into his pocket. 

"This rooms already reeks of semen. We'll throw this away somewhere."

Jones carefully cracked the door and made sure there was no one in the hallway before waving Dan out. Instead of joining Jones at the door, Dan remained staring at the recently defiled desk.

"What's wrong?" Jones whispered, checking the hallway again.

"Kevin Alexander," Dan answered. "Barley was talking about him..."

"Hurry up!" Jones whined. "I do not want to go to prison as a nonce. I'm too pretty."

Dan looked conflicted for a moment before grabbing a file and shoving it under his shirt. Considering he had just jizzed all over the same man's desk, Jones didn't feel he was in a position to lecture anyone about good behavior. He just needed to get back to his tables before one of Shoreditch's other 10,000 DJs tried to take over.


	5. The Three Faces of Dan Ashcroft

Kevin had seen Jones DJing. It was nearly impossible not to. Everywhere that oughtn't to have a DJ seemed to have Jones on the decks. Kevin had watched Jones move through his performance art-style sets all around town: while getting a haircut, buying a suit, grabbing a coffee, and even once at a nightclub. Jones was a celebrity DJ and frequently appeared in Sugar Ape. 

Jones screamed nonsense into a microphone about ice cream and currently used a Cabbage Patch-style Mr.T baby doll as a muse. He should have been on anti-idiot Dan Ashcroft's hate list, but instead, he was Dan's lover. In fact, they'd been living together for nearly two decades. For most of that time, Dan had been in the closet and had the world convinced he and Jones were just flatmates. Even Dan's sister had apparently gone along with the charade. 

Kevin held three pictures of Dan Ashcroft in his hand. One was of a clear-eyed, sharp-featured, young Dan. It was the picture Sugar Ape had used for his byline. The second photo was a print of Dan pissed and pissing against a wall. He was clearly out of his mind, glassy-eyed and disheveled. He was shaggy-haired and unshaven, and looked a bit like a tramp. The third photo was of Dan right before he'd left Sugar Ape. He was tanned and moisturized. His hair was perfectly styled and his teeth were blinding white, as was the pocket square in his expensive suit pocket. Kevin wondered which image most accurately represented the real Dan Ashcroft. The serious writer, the drunken hobo, or the dandified city gent? Kevin had tried to get information from Jonatton Yeah?, but the man was an enigma. He would only say all the photos of Dan were accurate in their own way. Kevin wasn't sure if his boss was being obtuse or just an asshole.

xxx

Dan was a little disappointed to realize he and Jones hadn't fucked on Doug Rocket's desk; it was the desk of his PA, instead. Doug Rocket was an absolute boner-killer, but it would have been nice to fondly look back on the day Jones had shot his load on Rocket's day planner.

It was a lowly PA who was collecting information on Kevin Alexander and trying to determine if he was a viable replacement for the "aging Dan Ashcroft." That's how the little fuck referred to Dan. The document mentioned Kevin's unofficial investigation of Dan and the less savory moments of his life, pondering if Kevin Alexander could become interesting by dragging Dan through the dirt. Dan wasn't concerned about the dirt dragging - he'd made his career putting his lowest points on display - but it was strange to think that someone else gave a shit or thought he could make a career by attacking a moderately well-known magazine hack. It seemed very likely that Jonatton Yeah? was intentionally turning Kevin against Dan. He needed a new 'star,' i.e., a new train wreck. Jonatton couldn't be held responsible for Dan's bad choices, but he had capitalized on them at every opportunity and had clearly enjoyed making Dan dance like a monkey. Dan felt a stab of sympathy for Kevin Alexander. He had no idea what he was getting into. Dan vaguely (very vaguely) remembered being young and optimistic and eager to be a proper writer. Sugar Ape had been a relatively new magazine and had seemed edgy and full of potential to a wanker right out of Uni. From the beginning, there had been factions of 'serious' writers and sensationalistic idiots. Mars had kept a careful balance, nurturing and torturing both camps equally. She was always a savvy businesswoman, but still had a love for her medium. Jonatton Yeah? had quickly moved the magazine in the direction of idiocy when he'd taken over. Sometimes, when he had a mellow wine-drunk going on, Dan wondered what had made Jonatton so cynical. The man seemed to have a sincere love of literature and good writing, but also took pleasure in turning Sugar Ape into the most repugnant magazine possible. 

The jury was still out on Kevin Alexander. Dan had read a few of his articles, and they weren't horrible, but they weren't memorable. He was still finding his voice as an author, and Sugar Ape was not a place that would foster literary skill. Dan knew he could call the kid up and warn him to run the fuck away, but it wouldn't do any good. Kevin was young and no doubt feeling indestructible and full of potential. Dan knew from experience that a person couldn't be told how the world worked. Letting the world beat the shit (and hope) out of you was just part of life. Kevin would learn the same way Dan had: by suffering.

xxx  
Claire had tremendous luck as a first-time director. "Down in Londontown" had been a remarkable success and gained her international attention. She was poised to make her follow-up. She had money and offers; she just needed a goddamn film. The one thing Claire had truly learned about filmmaking was that she didn't know shit about filmmaking. That had been fine when she was a scrappy underground independent, but now she had actual film studios calling her. She was not ready for the big time. There were so many topics that were meaningful to Claire, and she couldn't think of a thing she could credibly represent. As Nathan Barley would observe: "It's like my dad used to say, 'I'm a jack of all trades, but a master of nuns.' We had to put him in a home."

The more she researched various topics, the more she felt overwhelmed by the material.  
It was good to have Lenore around. Her neurotic niece understood what Claire was going through and could offer sound advice.

"A film starts a dialogue," Lenore reminded her. "It doesn't have to offer answers to be valid or to have an impact. There's no ontological truth here, only well-reasoned opinions. Worry about being thoughtful, not about knowing everything."

"What if my next movie sucks?"

Lenore laughed. "Then it will be your sophomore slump. It's expected," she said without hesitation.

"What if I never make another good movie?"

"What if you get hit by a train or turned into a zombie?" Lenore countered. "You're talented. That's why you've had success and will have success. If you want a predictable life, be an accountant, not a filmmaker."

Claire allowed herself a brief fantasy about being a chartered accountant, but had realized a long time ago she didn't want to have a normal life. She liked being bohemian. Sometimes she missed the chaos of living with Dan and Jones. Elizabeth was a great flatmate. She cleaned her own dishes and her own hair out of the drain. She was happy to share her food, but always replaced any food she borrowed. If Elizabeth kept Claire up into the wee hours, it was with wine and conversation, not by blasting house music so loud it endangered the stability of the building. Claire now relied on Nathan Barley to keep her life in a state of chaos.

"That's enough about me. How are you doing?" Claire said, taking Lenore's hand. 

Lenore burst into tears.

"I'm going to be the worst mother ever!" she cried as Claire pulled her into a hug. It was her turn to be the sensible one.

 

xxx

Mars called Dan into her office. She was smiling in a way that did not look like she was baring her teeth. It was unsettling. 

"I just had a chat with Erudite Publishing on your behalf," Mars announced without preamble.

"You have no right to speak for me or interfere with my life..."

"Blah, blah, blah," Mars snorted. "I already have this all recorded on my iPhone. It's stored under the track listing, 'Dannyboys's greatest bitches.' I convinced them to double your advance. You're a good writer, but a piss-poor businessman. You need someone with some balls on your side. Now you just need to figure out what to write about. Make it something sexy, something we can use for cross-promotion."

"Sexy?"

"Interesting, engaging. Don't just bellyache about your boring ideas about how the world should operate," Mars clarified. 

"Fine," Dan conceded. "I'll write a book of porno reviews."

Mars frowned. 

"You don't know how much I wish you were serious, Dannyboy. That would sell so bloody well with your pretentious wanker followers."

xxx

Nathan Barley was hard at work, in more ways than one. Jay-Me was the hottest singer in America, and she was planning her first international tour. Nathan was determined to meet (and possibly fuck) her. She couldn't sing for shit, but she was blond and fit, and her songs sampled really good old songs. 

Nathan was at a bit of a loss without Trashbat. He was set for money, and Breakthrough kept him busy, but he wasn't advancing himself as a brand. Nathan Barley was a raconteur and a bon vivant (or at least a wankonteur and boner vivant). He was meant to be on the scene - not just another guy with great hair and great clothes but a "somebody." He was a VIP, a very important player.

Dan Ashcroft didn't know it yet, but he was going to interview Jay-Me. Mars was wisely keeping it from Dan until the last moment, but no one kept anything from a bored Nathan Barley. He knew how to play people, and he knew most people's computer password was "password."

All he had to do was make sure he crossed paths with Jay-Me via his old pal, Dan Ashcroft, and it could only be a matter of time until he and Jay-Me were making sweet music together.

Nathan was scouring the net, getting every bit of information available about Jay-Me's upcoming visit, so as to anticipate where he would need to be and when. He was so caught up in his work, he didn't hear Claire open the door. Out of instinct, he shut down his browser.

"Nathan!" Claire snapped. "Are you looking at porn again? I thought we agreed this was a wank-free zone."

"I agreed to no such thing, Monkey Muff," Nathan replied. "If you must know, I'm doing research for a very important project."

Claire looked dubious, but not angry. She just sat down next to Nathan with an expression that meant they were about to have a 'serious talk.'

"Dan says you've been turning down a lot of money for Breakthrough. Is that true?" she asked in a neutral tone. Nathan hadn't been consciously aware of how well he picked up on people's vocal inflections until Claire had learned to control her own. Her face was blank and her tone was neutral, and Nathan had no idea what to do. Even when she was furious, there was always a way to soften Claire, as long as he could sort out why she was really angry. She would scream because Nathan was jerking off in their office, but he could usually tell if she was angry because porn stars made her feel fat or if she was just PMSing by the shrillness of her scolding. When she was calm, she was a blank slate.

Nathan would have to tread carefully.

"Depends on what you call a lot of money."

Claire pursed her lips for a moment, enough for Nathan to know she was pleased with his answer. He was immediately relieved. Nathan was good at getting people to do what he wanted, but he couldn't work out how to keep from pissing them off. Sometimes he imagined he needed a mentor like Russell Brand or Kanye West, someone who knew how to make people forgive their indiscretions just by being fucking cool and hanging out with cool people. The problem was that that kind of charisma made a person a Highlander, 'cause there could only be one person balancing on the shoulders of others. If Nathan got too close to Russell Brand, he'd get his head chopped off.

"Breakthrough is our baby," Nathan continued. "I'm not going to sell it off for a bit of cash."

Nathan tried to be casual, but he couldn't resist watching Claire's reaction and making sure he was still on the right track. Claire smiled in a way that reminded him of when they'd first met, when Claire had been pleased to draw Nathan's attention away from her big brother. At the time, he'd mistaken her response as a general desperation for approval, but she was a different person away from Dan. Her insextual tension (a term he'd trademarked) with Dan held her back in a lot of ways. Her need for her brother's approval clashed with her need to separate herself from Dan, which kept her from truly carving out her own niche. 

Nathan flinched when Claire moved towards him, but she was only moving in for a kiss. He was debating if it was too soon to go for a little tit when Claire wrapped her hand around his junk. Nathan was skilled at reading body language, and recognized it as a very good sign.

 

xxx  
Eric Porter's marriage was falling apart because of Dan Ashcroft.

Kevin was uncomfortable with all the manly emotion pouring from the builder. Kevin wasn't used to working-class feelings.

"I asked if he was gay and he said no," Eric said softly, staring into the distance. "I should have known. That's why it's called straying... it's supposed to be straight men getting off... pardon my language. There aren't supposed to be any feelings involved."

"Do you think Dan ever cared for you?" Kevin asked, baffled by the story he was hearing. He'd always assumed the article Dan had written about pulling off a builder in a pub was something of a fantasy. He hadn't expected a burly man who loved his family, but couldn't close his eyes without seeing Dan Ashcroft.

"No. He was... aloof. I don't think he even knows how to feel anymore. When I saw him peeing against a wall for some freakball photographer... That's not the Dan I knew."

"How well did you know Dan?" Kevin asked, hoping to eventually pin Eric down to some facts. It was obvious that the tawdry affair had meant more to Eric than to Dan, but it also seemed like Eric was playing a few cards shy of a full deck. 

"I knew him as well as I've ever known anyone," was Eric's cryptic response. He seemed to think specifics, much like Dan taking his cock out for a photo shoot, diminished the seriousness of their connection.

"What does your wife think of... what you have with Dan?"

Kevin gave an apologetic smile to Eric's wife, Tricia, who was sitting several tables away with the kids. 

"She understands that I have needs," Eric explained quietly. "Manly needs that require a man's intervention. But she's never truly understood what Dan and I shared. That's why it's supposed to be straight men. I asked him, and he swore he wasn't gay. I should have known better. Those hands..."

Kevin didn't learn much, other than that Dan Ashcroft apparently gave a hell of a hand job, from their conversation. When he got home, he stared at his three faces of Dan Ashcroft and wondered which one had bewitched Eric the builder.


	6. This is Not Happening

Dan was the last person to actually speak to Erudite Publishing. Even Lenore spoke to them first, posing as his literary agent. Lenore had offered many times to help Dan get a book published, but it wasn't worth the inevitable awkwardness. Dan did not take criticism especially well, and had no capacity to separate himself from his work. The first time Lenore suggested a change, he'd end up blind drunk and hiding under a couch.

His first call to Erudite Publishing was to arrange for his advance. When he heard the final amount, he felt dizzy. Dan was going to be able to bathe in money. He could stuff a mattress with pound notes and sleep on it. He'd know he was poor again when his back started to get sore.

He'd shared a celebratory bottle of champagne with Mars, and then another. Then Mars sent her assistant out for more bottles. By the time he staggered over to Sasha, Dan was feeling invincible. Of course he could write a book. His head was full of ideas, and people inexplicably cared about what he had to say. People were always taking him seriously, no matter what he did. Even the fact that 15Peter20 had taken a photo of him pissing against a wall hadn't devalued Dan's opinion. People thought it was ironic, or a sign that Dan was going to take his self-destructiveness to its logical conclusion. He had always seemed destined for a horrific death.

"What have you done, Sasha?" he cried. "You're going to make something of me after all."

Sasha held out her arms for a hug. Dan held her and smelled her pleasant, girly scent. She was soft and small, and very beautiful. He wasn't sure who kissed who first, but he knew Sasha was engaged to a very practical and mature man who was sure to be a good father and role model to her kids. A man who could be allowed to stay until the morning, instead of being kicked out by four am.

"Sasha?"

"No talking," Sasha ordered. "This is not happening."

For a moment, Dan thought she meant they were going to stop, but she was undoing his trousers. The signals were mixed.

It had been two years since they'd shared more than a friendly hug, but it felt easy and natural to run his hand up Sasha's short skirt. She was more than ready for him, and the wet heat of her body made Dan feel invincible. There was nothing like the combination of success, booze, and a willing woman to make Dan Ashcroft feel like - for a few moments in time - he knew what the fuck he was doing with his life. Sasha had condoms at the ready, because she was not the kind of girl to have crazy, drunken, possibly life-ruining sex on a desk without being prepared.

When he thought about how Jones would react, whether with fury or indifference, Dan felt like a bystander. He had never been able to imagine a scenario in which he wouldn't lose Jones. It had always been a matter of time until he alienated the one person who truly accepted him. After two years of wondering, Dan Ashcroft finally knew how he was going to fuck up his first relationship. It would be with a woman who would never consider him as a serious partner, and wouldn't introduce him to her kids. He would again be Sasha's dirty little secret. It was a role that Dan was born to play.

xxx

"I fucked Sasha on my desk. We were both drunk and it happened."

Dan was in a battle stance, clearly prepared for an attack. Jones had the strange feeling that he should apologize. Everything about his demeanor suggested that Dan Ashcroft had been terribly wronged. He was holding himself at full height and looked almost authoritative, despite his shambolic and hungover appearance. 

"Was it the first time?" Jones asked, trying to get his bearings. He'd only been awake for a few minutes and hadn't even had a cup of tea yet. He wasn't ready for one of Dan's breakdowns. "I mean, the first time since you and I..."

"Of course!" Dan bellowed, looking insulted. "I haven't been screwing around on you. I was the one who wanted to be exclusive. This was just one terrible mistake."

Jones watched the piss and vinegar drain from Dan, until he was left looking like he barely had the energy to stand.

"I'm sorry, Jones. I'm..." Dan slumped as much as it was possible for a tall man to slump without falling over. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to say."

For a writer, Dan tended to be pretty rubbish in the word department. Like most Western males, Dan kept a healthy distance from his feelings and only seemed tangentially aware of his own motivations in life. 

"I need some tea, and maybe some muesli..." It was all Jones could think of to say. There was only so much information a person could take in before his first cup of the day.

xxx

It was awkward in bed. Jones didn't know what he was supposed to do. Those social niceties, like how to treat your unfaithful lover when it was bedtime, had not been a part of Jones's life. He felt stiff and a bit foolish, like he'd just found out Dan's name was actually Don, and Jones had been saying it wrong for two decades without noticing.

Dan didn't speak when Jones climbed into bed; he just kissed Jones's shoulder. One quick kiss, like he was testing the waters. When he began kissing Jones all over, it wasn't so much sexual as affectionate (and a bit needy), but it went to Jones's head. He wanted nothing more than to hold Dan and feel close and connected, but it felt strange. He'd woken up confident that Dan would never cheat, and he was going to bed knowing that Dan had cheated. Black was white, and the mix he'd made that evening was total rubbish. He put Dan's hand to his cock, sensing it would be best to be unambiguous about his intentions. Dan wasn't confident in his ability to read a situation at the best of times, and it was far from the best of times.

When Dan reached for the lubricant, Jones felt a little uneasy. He wasn't one to assign a lot of excess meaning to sexual positions, but he didn't really want to be topped by someone who suddenly felt like a stranger. He tried to think of how to say as much without Dan taking it too much to heart. Dan would beat himself up for ages over the affair; there was no need for Jones to feed his self-loathing. Once Dan got into one of his downward spirals, he would sabotage everything he had going for him. That was his way. It would feel good to call Dan a wanker and a bastard and get all that negativity out, but Dan didn't let things go. Whatever Jones said to blow off steam, Dan would remember forever and believe more than anything Jones had ever said about how much he loved the bastard wanker.

So Jones kept quiet as Dan fumbled with the lube, but he had to smile when he realized Dan was actually preparing himself to be topped. He only rarely topped Dan. Jones generally preferred bottoming and/or blowjobs, but every once in a while, he would treat himself to a little Northern bumming. It was always hot, and Dan always seemed to enjoy himself after a little initial awkwardness, but the only time Dan initiated that particular position was when he was trying to send a message. It was usually an apology, because Dan was always sorry about something. So when Dan forgot to go to the bank or left the milk out or had sex with his PA, he bottomed for Jones to show his sincere remorse. It was ridiculous, but it was so typically Dan that it broke his heart. Dan supplied a condom, showing he'd come prepared. In a strange way, it made Jones feel better to know Dan had come home with johnnies. Jones had never asked a partner to be exclusive. His parents had put him on the street at fourteen because they disapproved of his sexuality, and Jones had no interest in judging anyone or adhering to societal norms. He'd always told Dan he could have other partners, as long as he was honest and used protection. It was Dan that wanted monogamy. 

There was some comfort in the fact that Dan was prepared, that he had planned to be honest and he had planned on continuing his relationship with Jones. Not long ago, Dan's response would certainly have been to get pissed and silent. He would have let the relationship wither and die before he'd talk about his feelings and motivations. 

Jones had spent a lot of time on the streets before he'd met Dan. Jones had never agreed to sleep with someone for a place to stay, but there had been times when he'd felt like he was prostituting himself for food and shelter. Sometimes he'd meet a guy, or even a girl, that he really liked and who offered him a place to stay. It would be terrific, but then if things turned sexual... he could never be sure if saying no was really an option. It wasn't a good feeling. It had made Jones paranoid, and made him feel alone even when he was in bed with someone.

Dan had never asked him for anything. He had paid nearly all the bills for years until Jones started making some serious money as a DJ. Dan had never asked for anything in return. He didn't want to be thanked; he just wanted Jones to be safe. Even before they were friends, when they were just flatmates, Dan had worried about Jones in his own, gruff way. Dan would have two fags in one hand and a whiskey neat in the other as he warned Jones to stay away from designer drugs and men with neck tattoos and other things that would kill him. Jones had let Dan know on several occasions that he wasn't averse to sharing a bed, but Dan would just ruffle his hair and sleep on the couch. Dan was like a big brother to Jones. Not a real brother, but kind of a sexy stepbrother.

Jones tried to shut his brain off and just let Dan make him feel good. Shutting his brain off wasn't easy without chemical assistance, but Dan knew exactly what Jones liked. It wasn't long before Jones was rattling their headboard so hard it looked like it might come loose while Dan told him he was "fucking amazing."

Jones would make it work. He loved Dan.

Besides, they were going to be grandparents soon.

 

 

xxx

Sasha's expression offered no clue to her thoughts. It was far from unusual – she'd always held her cards close to her chest – but it was a startling contrast to Dan's feeling of being wide open and exposed. He was a computer trapped in a porn cycle. Faster than he could close one screen, five more popped up, moaning his disgrace to the world. His brain couldn't be unplugged or forced closed. Alcohol had used to work like a reset button, but not anymore. 

Sasha's eyes narrowed, her face a stony mask.

"What the fuck did you do, Dan?"

Like all good mothers, Sasha knew how to yell in a barely audible whisper.

Dan fidgeted like a child. He'd never been able to deal with other people's anger. He'd spent hours bracing himself for Jones to tell him off. When the screams and vitriol never came, Dan was left on edge and confused, feeling worse than ever. He should have known Jones would take it all in stride. Other than Claire, no one knew Dan like Jones. Jones had known from the beginning that he was getting tangled up with a selfish asshole. Jones had never bothered to ask why Dan was unfaithful.

"Who did you tell?" Sasha whispered.

"Jones."

For a moment, Dan thought Sasha was going to snap a pen in half, but she took a breath and closed her eyes.

And put the pen down. Her face was once again inscrutable. 

"I'm getting married," she reminded him. "I can't be involved in your self-indulgent drama, Dan. I've got my own mental problems."

"He won't say anything," Dan assured her, feeling an irrational need to defend Jones from even the hint that he was a gossip. Jones minded his own business and had no interest in being malicious. If Jones were one to tell tales out of school, Kevin Alexander wouldn't need to do an "unofficial investigation" into Dan Ashcroft. 

Dan didn't dare look away from Sasha's searching stare.

"No one else," she ordered, making no pretense that it was a request. "No one hears about this. Not even Claire."

Dan pretended to zip his lip and throw away the key. It was the same gesture he would use when he was promising to keep Claire's secrets, but this time he meant it. It was one thing to humiliate your little sister; that was just harmless fun. In a strange way, Sasha was one of Dan's best friends. She was always trying to clean him up and put him on the right track. They often disagreed on what his goals should be, but Dan never doubted which of them was right. He had long ago realized that living up to his potential was too hard, but Sasha still thought she could make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that was Dan Ashcroft. It would be a thrift shop silk purse, one that reeked of booze and fags and was stained from being dropped in a puddle of sick, but still more elegant than Dan was ever willing to be.

Sasha continued to stare Dan down until he wondered if he was supposed to go to his desk, but then her face softened.

"I'm sorry, Dan. I'm sorry I dragged you into my little age crisis. I've just been feeling overwhelmed, and it was nice to just get pissed and..." Sasha trailed off and finally broke eye contact. "It's hard being a grown-up."

"Yes!" Dan agreed with entirely too much enthusiasm.

Sasha laughed.

"Don't let Jones get away. Don't give up and just..." Sasha gave a despairing face that was entirely too reminiscent of Jonatton Yeah's 'Dan face.' "He's good for you."

Dan spent the rest of the day wondering how people went about not screwing up relationships.


	7. They Have Pills for Everything

Ned listened with amazement as Lenore explained the ins and outs of work visas and the British healthcare system. He was learning a lot, like that NHS stood for National Health Service. He'd always assumed the H stood for hospital and S stood for sickies. He drifted in and out of the conversation, but Lenore seemed to have things under control. Ned felt confident about his ability to be a good dad. Lenore would take care of all the mum things, like making sure the baby ate every day and went to school and shit, but Ned would take care of dad things, like buying the baby clothes and teaching it how to color. Ned had already taken a picture of Lenore and turned it into a picture the little tyke could color in. The baby couldn't do it right away, of course. Crayons said they were non-toxic, but Ned well knew that if you ate too many, you got sick. He'd learned that when he was five and ate a box of eight crayons. He'd learned it again when he was twenty-four and ate twenty-four crayons on a bet (and while on Ecstasy). 

That was something he'd be able to teach the baby, that non-toxic was not the same as edible. He'd leave the other sciencey stuff to Lenore.

When they were called into the baby TV room, Lenore turned even paler than usual. He grabbed a wastebasket, but she said she wasn't going to be sick. When Ned asked why she looked all strange, she opened her little eyes wide and said, "What if something is wrong with the baby? Or me? What will we do?"

"They've got pills for everything," Ned assured her as he stood up, eager to see if the baby was going to have some color or be a straight-up honky like Lenore.

"They don't have pills for a baby with no heartbeat."

Ned looked into Lenore's worried face and wondered what it was like to always be thinking about things.

"If there's something wrong with the baby..." Ned began, trying to find words that wouldn't upset Lenore.

"What will we do?" she asked, looking at him like he was a man with answers.

"We'll cry and shit. We'll be sad and maybe go to therapy and draw our feelings. What else can you do when something well sad happens?" It seemed like the kind of thing Lenore should already know.

Lenore stood up and went up on her tiptoes to kiss Ned's cheek.

"I love you, Ned."

"Does that mean you want to get married?"

"Let's just see how living together works out."

xxx

Dan sat in his favorite chair while Jones experimented with various children's instruments he'd picked up secondhand. He was looking for just the right sweet and innocent sound to layer over industrial noises that sounded like they were coming straight from the bowels of hell.

He seemed torn between a toy guitar and a plastic train whistle.

Other than the strangeness that permeated every aspect of Dan's life, it was downright domestic. It made him want to punch himself in the face for being what Mars would call a fucktard. Jones was as cheerful and amiable as ever, taking Dan's breakdown in stride. He hadn't used the word "grandfather" yet, but he was already making plans for "Baby Ashcroft." When he hit the secondhand shops, he not only bought children's toys (typical), he also bought baby clothes (distinctly atypical). It warmed Dan's heart to see Jones sewing badges onto a plain onesie. He clearly expected Lenore's baby to have fairly eclectic tastes, liking everything from KISS to the Smiths to the Talking Heads to Deadmau5. Jones had a superstitious streak, so it wasn't surprising that he was being quiet about his preparations. Even Dan knew you couldn't give a baby a Smiths onesie in the first trimester. That was definitely bad luck. While Dan was certain Jones did not actually believe early gifts would harm the baby... he also never played a gig without a roll of Polos on his person, and he never left the house without tracing his name where it was spray painted on their door. Jones always made it home safe and he was being featured in some pretty big magazines, so maybe he was on to something. Dan knew there was nothing he could do to change his own luck. Dan had never had the ability to sway the direction of his life. He was forever a passenger, trying to hit the imaginary break as he careened from one extreme to the next.

"Is it too soon to know if it's a boy or a girl yet?" Jones asked, suddenly looking up from his work.

"Yes," Dan answered, always a little proud when he knew an answer AND managed to say it out loud. He only knew because Lenore had told him while making plans to come for dinner. He knew almost nothing about babies. He was the father of an amazing young woman, but he'd had nothing to do with that. He'd thrown some of his better genes at her, but she was an adult before he knew she existed. Under the circumstances, the term 'deadbeat dad' wasn't really applicable, but Dan couldn't help but think that Marilyn had had a good reason to keep Dan away from Lenore. 

She'd only known Dan for two years and was having a baby with an actual imbecile. If she stayed in London, she'd probably drop out of business school and end up working at a kiosk.

"I wonder what Lenny wants," Jones mused. "I'd want a girl."

"Why's that?" Dan asked with sincere interest. Jones had never mentioned children before, and Dan was surprised that living with Claire hadn't put Jones off of women entirely. Dan loved his sister with all his heart, but she was a bit of a pill. When the three of them had shared a flat, Claire had always been on Jones about blasting his music at four AM, drinking juice straight from the bottle, and wearing her clothes. 

"Girls are intuitive and powerful," Jones explained. "And they are dead sexy when they DJ."

Dan wanted to track down Nathan Barley and strangle him for potentially lusting after his potential granddaughter. It was bad enough she was going to be genetically half-idiot, thanks to Ned Smanks.

"If you had a baby... You know, one you raised from a baby, what would you want? A boy or a girl?" Jones asked as he perched on the arm of Dan's chair, train whistle in hand.

Dan didn't have to think. He'd want a girl with little dark curls and even littler dark eyes. He wanted another Lenore.

Dan made a noncommittal noise and shrugged.

Jones dropped himself into Dan's lap and held the train whistle to his mouth. He grinned when Dan blew, his face filled with joy, as if Dan had written a symphony rather than operated a whistle meant for small children.

"Sounds better when you play it," Jones explained. "You've got that chocolatey tone."

Jones then did an imitation of Dan's voice. It was not a flattering imitation – he sounded old and constipated – but he knew Jones meant it in a positive way. 

Jones took Dan by the hand and pulled him to a recording microphone on his tables. Dan hated being recorded – he was self-conscious enough – but he could never resist the urge to win Jones over. It was no surprise that Jones was being sweet and forgiving, but Dan was still surprised that his partner still considered him worth the effort. A train whistle solo was a small price to pay for that kind of unconditional love.

xxx

Lenore was pale and her hands were shaking. Ned was grinning like a loon.

"Preach!" Ned yelled as he walked through the door. "This is mental! You will never believe this, right here." 

Dan prepared himself for a scan of a foetus with ironic glasses and earbuds.

Jones ran over to Lenore, taking her shaking hands in his. Dan was a little put off that Jones was so much better at parenting than Dan.

Jones held Lenore's hands while giving her a healthy amount of space. Lenore had not been raised in England or by an Ashcroft, but she had a certain skittishness and need for personal space that made Dan wonder if such things could be hereditary.

"Do you have a scan? Who does the baby Ashcroft take after?" Jones asked. His smile was bright, but Dan could see he was scanning between Ned's joyful expression and Lenore's look of worry and treading with care. 

Ned looked ready to exploded as Lenore took a shallow and shaky breath.

"It's twins!" Ned yelled before Lenore could regain her composure. "Two babies for the price of one. I hope one is a girl and one is a boy and one is pasty and one has a little flavor. That way, we won't even need to ever have any more 'cause we'll have a full set, you know? Genius, right, Preach?"

Dan wanted to offer Lenore some comfort, as she was obviously less enthusiastic about her twofer deal, but he was pretty sure she wouldn't want a shot and a fag. Dan's mother had smoked and drank wine all through her pregnancy with Dan, and while he had turned out healthy, the fact that she had given up both vices while pregnant with Claire made him think there was a benefit to being a little cautious. 

He settled for an awkward hand on her shoulder, which resulted in an unexpected and even more awkward hug. Dan looked at Jones, who mimed that he should stroke Lenore's hair. Dan patted at her curls while Jones assured her she would be a genius mum. Even when Ned couldn't hold in his enthusiasm any more and turned it into a group hug, Dan wasn't repelled. He was, however, grateful as hell that he wasn't the one having twins.

xxx

Rufus Onslatt was an amiable fellow, if not very bright. It was hard to keep him on track, but he was full of stories about Dan Ashcroft. There had been a lot of turnover in the staff since Dan's departure, but Rufus was childlike enough to forever fit in with the youthful staff. 

"Hey, Kevin! You hear about the Preacher Man? He's gonna be a grandad. Mental."

One of the strangest twists in the Dan Ashcroft's story was his child with the late, celebrated author, Marilyn Arthur. His daughter was a wealthy American heiress, and it was her publishing company that backed E-lite magazine. Lenore Arthur was one hell of a daughter. She had set her father up with a cushy job and a sweet paycheck. For all his griping about his magazine and "the idiots," he'd stayed until he was handed a better opportunity on a platter. Kevin had heard about Dan's one disastrous attempt at an interview at another rag. Kevin had a feeling Dan had probably been drunk at the time; he couldn't imagine another reason for his pathetic performance. 

Lenore had also set up a position for her boyfriend, Ned Smanks. 

"Lenore is having a baby? With Smanks?"

"Yeah, with Smanks!" Rufus snapped. "Lenore and Smanks are well in love. They're like Gnomeo and Juliet and shit."

Kevin laughed, before realizing Rufus wasn't being ironic. He was really not very bright. Apparently Smanks wasn't much in the brains department, either. Kevin was a little fuzzy on what Lenore saw in Smanks. She was a pretty girl with a fortune in the bank. He could only imagine she was looking for a trophy boy in Ned Smanks. Even at that, there were surely plenty of good-looking men who weren't stupid. 

"How's he taking it?" Kevin asked. Rufus seemed to adore Dan Ashcroft and Ned Smanks, but he didn't appear to be filtering his stories about his friends. If he was trying to make them sound good, he was doing a terrible job. Of course, the fact that he wasn't exactly the brightest bulb was likely a factor. 

"He's probably going mental, 'cause Smanks is... you know."

Kevin was sincere in his confusion. "Because he's... what?"

"I ain't gonna say it. Smanks is... you know. He's my best mate, I ain't gonna call him names."

Kevin tried to follow Rufus's logic.

"Is it because Smanks is biracial?" he finally asked. Kevin knew from his own grandfather that a man could like Black women, but still be incredibly racist.

"Smanks isn't bi," Rufus quickly explained. "There was one time at school, but Smanks says the other guy was well girly... I mean, he ain't bi! He's just dumb as shit."


	8. Kick Against the Pricks

"Oh, Danny," Mars barked as she walked by. "You'll be interviewing that twit Jay-Me in two weeks. Start reading up."

Dan looked around, hoping to see someone else that might go by the name of Danny. No one but Mars had ever called him Danny. He'd been a bratty child; he'd spent his childhood being called Daniel Matthew Ashcroft.

"Who the fuck is Jamie?"

"Jay-Me. She's a huge star. You'll hate her. She wants to show she's all grown up now. People in other countries will be reading this article, so don't fuck it up."

xxx

Jay-Me was born to be a superstar. She wanted to be Andy Warhol, but not so boring and talky.

It only took a quick Google search to figure out who Jay-Me needed to sit down with in England. She typed in, "Cool ass English writers," and up popped Dan Ashcroft's name. There was a website called Trashbat that had quite a bit to say about Ashcroft's guru-like cool. He was a subversive intellect, tearing through the bullshit of trends. Jay-Me knew that only he would be able to really understand her. Jay-Me wasn't just another plastic pop princess; she was an artist. Just because her songs were catchy and danceable didn't make them insubstantial or meaningless.

After reading a few articles by Dan Ashcroft, and seeing a few pictures, she was set on being interviewed him and only him. Obviously, she'd do interviews with other magazines in England, but they'd just be the usual B.S. Dan would get to know the real Jay-Me. 

He was sexy in a 'boozy geography teacher who might actually take you up on your flirtation' kind of way. The fact that he was gay only made him hotter, especially since his boyfriend was a sexy beast. 

DJ Jones was all over YouTube. Jay-Me could imagine working with him. She couldn't imagine the actual music, but she could see them looking trendy and a bit wild in a studio. It would be so Warhol. But with better music.

As she explored Trashbat.co.ck, Jay-Me was disappointed that the tone of the webpage had changed. The grammar and spelling were better, but the energy was gone. According to the message boards, the website now "sucked balls" because Nathan Barley had "pussied out" and was doing "artsy shit." 

Jay-Me needed Nathan Barley to cover her being interviewed by Dan Ashcroft. It would be a perfect storm of wit, personality, and passion. It was just what she needed to make a transition into her more serious work.

It was time for the world to meet Jay-Me for the first time for the second time.

xxx

The old Dan Ashcroft would have bitterly resented having to interview someone with the nerve to spell her name Jay-Me, but the new Dan was mellower. He understood what was important. Jay-Me was answering his questions by e-mail and nearly writing his article for him. He'd sent a list of rumors he found on the internet and asked her to confirm or deny. She had sorted them into "Sort of True," "Total Bullshit," and "WTF?" He was cutting and pasting her answers into an article that would only need a little B.S. filler about what she was wearing and if she showed up on time to their 'interview.' 

It was an easy fucking interview, and Dan was going to need to put in about four hours of work to earn his month's pay. It was selling his soul, but Mars didn't seem to realize how cheaply his soul could be bought. He'd jerked off a builder for far less. He'd drunkenly signed over permission for 15Peter20 to mass produce a photo of Dan with his cock out for less.

He hadn't asked for a penny from Nathan Barley; he'd just asked the little shit to suck his dick because he was depressed and feeling so very old. That was two years ago, when he'd had a little room between himself and forty.

He'd suck Nathan Barley's dick to smoke a real cigarette. The electric cigarette gave him the sweet nicotine, but it didn't deliver those singed carcinogens that gripped his lungs and made it just hard enough to breathe for him to wonder, "Is this what death feels like? Because it feels pretty fucking good."

"You can have a proper smoke when we're done," Jones said without looking away from the door. "You'll survive, Ashcroft."

Dan smiled at Jones and wondered how his lover knew he was thinking about cigarettes. He wanted to believe Jones had seen some subtle sign, but Dan had probably been licking his electric cigarette and panting. It was so hard for Dan to express his feelings, and yet they seemed to come out in fairly obvious ways when he was distracted. Dan had to be constantly on guard against acting like a fool. If he let his mind wander, he became the guy at the party who could always be hypnotized. He'd be dancing and clucking up a storm, while Nathan Barley recorded it on his phone.

Jay-Me had expressed interest in Jones's music, and that was more than enough of an excuse for Dan to bring him along to the interview. If Jones could get a major gig out of Dan's subjugation, it would feel like a karmic resolution. 

Jones had taught Dan how to listen to Jay-Me's music.

"You have to ignore the lyrics and the music, they're rubbish," Jones had explained while blasting an insipid song about being an outcast. Jones adjusted a few speakers until only a thumping bass line remained.

"Listen to the beats," Jones yelled over the pounding, beginning to dance. "Her producer is a fucking genius. You could put this over a funeral dirge and the pallbearers would drop it like it's hot."

Jones demonstrated how the pallbearers would grind their tight, leather-clad bottoms. At that point, Dan had lost all interest in Jay-Me and anything else that wasn't Jones.

"There she is," Jones said, nodding towards the door. "She's early."

Dan held his tape recorder under Jones's mouth.

"Jay-Me arrives at the hotel bar five minutes early and sporting a pair of jeans... Roberto Cavalli jeans and a peasant blouse from Top Shop..."

Jones described Jay-Me's outfit using words that were unfamiliar to Dan. Jones's time in the thrift shops of London had made him a connoisseur, and with his slim build, Jones had never felt a need to restrict himself to the men's section. 

What Dan saw when he looked at Jay-Me was a woman Lenore's age wearing a clown shirt, with gems glued to her trousers. It was the idiotic tramp-chic that was so popular amongst idiots. Dan had been accused of looking tramp-like on more than one occasion, and sometimes people threw money in his coffee, thinking he was begging rather than, well, drinking coffee, but it was because his clothes were old and well-worn (if not by him, then by someone). Buying new clothes that looked old or like they had been individualized by hand rather than mass-produced was the height of sartorial idiocy. All over Shoreditch, there were people wearing their factory-embellished clothing rather than taking the time to glue some junk onto their clothes themselves. There wasn't an item in Jones's closet that he hadn't tailored in one way or another, and it annoyed Dan when someone would ask Jones where he bought his clothes. It was like the twits who wrote to Dan asking for advice on getting published without bothering to run a spell check or even use real words. They were saving their words for their masterpiece (which would promptly be optioned for a movie). Everyone was looking for the easy way, and writing was not meant to be easy. A person did not decide to become a writer; a person was forced to write because it was the only way to keep all the words in his head from crushing him.

At least, that was Dan's experience.

xxx

Jones enjoyed watching Dan work, even when it was painful. Jay-Me was clearly thrown off by her interviewer's indifference and was working so hard to try and inspire a reaction that Jones found himself laughing too hard at her jokes and trying to smooth the situation over.

Dan was endlessly tortured by his writing by nature, and tortured by his employers by design. Jones was on the fence about whether it was a good or bad thing that Dan was so willing to interview Jay-Me, however laconically. It was good to see Dan roll with the punches and not get so worked up over the small things, but he never wanted to see Dan give up the good fight. The world needed Dan Ashcroft to kick back against the pricks.

Jones could feel Dan suddenly tense and didn't need to look up to know who was approaching their table. He grabbed Dan's hand under the table and squeezed.

"Preach!" Nathan Barley yelled, holding out his arms like he expected a hug. "How's my favorite cock muncher?" 

Jones saw Jay-Me frown, and he saw Nathan pick up on that frown. Sir Dick Cheese quickly turned on what he tried to pass for charm, keeping up the pretense that he just happened to be wandering through a hotel bar on a Wednesday.

"Now, what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? And with these knobs?" Nathan reached out to touch Jones's shoulder but wisely stopped short. "Name's Nathan Barley. These guys and I go way back."

Jay-Me's face lit up.

"You're the Nathan Barley?"

xxx

Dan Ashcroft was a happy man. He had his article, he'd unloaded Jay-Me and Nathan Barley on one another, and he was heading home with Jones.

He knew Nathan and Claire were sleeping together. If Jay-Me were to come between them... 

"Why are you grinning?" Jones asked. "What have you done?"

Dan looked at his partner appreciatively. Watching someone else be mesmerized by Jones helped him to take a step back and appreciate the self-created work of art that was Daniel Jones.

"Are you and Jay-Me going to go shopping? Get an ice cream?" Dan teased. Dan had taken Nathan Barley's arrival as his chance to escape. Jay-Me had clearly been thrown off, and the terminally kind Jones had exchanged phone numbers with her when Dan pretended to have forgotten his mobile. He was fairly certain he would never, ever have another reason to talk to Jay-Me.

Besides, she and Nathan Barley had a lot in common. They both thought Madonna was a genius. What else was there to say? Two people who attached the word genius to Madonna belonged together. He'd really had no choice but to leave. It could only be a matter of time before Nathan brought up the fact that Dan and his Dan Jr. were on display in Madonna's home. That wasn't a conversation Dan was willing to have.

"Have a heart, Dan! The poor thing was trying so hard to impress you. She read all your articles..."

"And loved all of them," Dan added. "Even the one Jonatton Yeah? wrote. She's an idiot."

"She's pretty. And sexy."

Dan shuddered. "She's the same age as Lenore."

When Jones didn't share his disgust, Dan's heart stopped. The hours he'd spent wondering if he'd finally lost Jones had destroyed even the vaguest interest he'd had in other sexual partners. The thought of having an affair made him want to vomit with anxiety. Dan had gotten a taste of happiness; he wasn't ready to lose it all.

"Jones..." He couldn't think of anything else to say. He was feeling dizzy, and he was pretty sure it was only vaguely connected to the three whiskey and sodas he'd had at the hotel, and the four cigarettes he'd smoked in the past fifteen minutes. 

"I don't mean to keep shovin' it in your face," Jones said quietly. "It's just... it's still doin' my head in. I'll get over it."

Dan felt guilty and ashamed and impotent in every way possible. With about seven hours, a bottle, three packs of fags, and his laptop, Dan might have been able to put his feelings into words.

If he'd been capable of crying, it would have been a relief. As it was, he would just have a headache that would hang on. It was like there were too many thoughts in his head, and they were bruising his skull. When Jones hugged him, Dan felt like a piece of shit, but he felt like a lucky piece of shit.

"I love you, Dan," Jones whispered into Dan's ear. Dan's eyes were painfully dry, as though all the moisture in his body had fled his head, lest he shed a tear.

"Love you." Dan managed to squeak the words around the lump in his throat.


	9. Ugly Baby Pictures

Nathan Barley believed in true love. He'd known almost since he met Claire Ashcroft that he was meant to be with her. At first it had just been about her slammin' body, but it had quickly grown into more. Claire wasn't just fit; she was smart and funny (for a girl), and she made Nathan want to be smarter and funnier. 

Nathan figured he and Claire would probably get married and have a couple of kids. The sex was good as long as Nathan didn't get too nervous, and Claire was starting to treat him a bit like a boyfriend instead of a fuck buddy.

That's why he couldn't go to Jay-Me's hotel room without talking to Claire first. He couldn't cheat on her; she'd never forgive that, and she would certainly find out. If he was going to fuck another girl, he had to be 100% sure that he and Claire were not an official couple.

"What is it, Nathan?" was how she answered the phone.

"Listen, Sugar Tits, I was thinking about how we should tell Dan we're a couple now..."

"What? You can't... We aren't..." Claire sputtered, clearly shaken.

"Why shouldn't he know about our love, Monkey Muff? He's going to be my brother," Nathan continued.

"Have you lost your mind?" Claire yelled. "We've only just... We are not in a relationship! Do not tell Dan we are a couple, you stupid twat..."

"So we are definitely not in an exclusive relationship?" Nathan asked, grateful the WASP T21 had a simple button for recording conversations. It had been a massive pain in the ass on the WASP T20.

"No, we are not a couple!" Claire yelled before the call suddenly dropped. Or maybe Claire had hung up. It was hard to tell anymore.

Nathan grinned. He was free to fuck anyone he liked, and he'd be able to use Claire's words against her for weeks. He was finally going to get a blowie from Claire.

xxx

Claire didn't hate the idea of someone doing a hatchet job on Dan. She didn't want someone to further his or her career by taking potshots at her brother; it just wasn't the worst thing she could imagine. 

Maybe she had been smiling during the first few lines of Kevin Alexander's article.

If you are a serious writer in Shoreditch, talking about Dan Ashcroft is like seeing pictures of someone's truly ugly baby. You have to hide your impulse to step back, and you must keep the revulsion from your face. It doesn't matter if the kid has transparent eyelashes and a pointed head; the person in front of you loves that baby.

I've spent months trying to find things to like about Dan Ashcroft, the equivalent of saying, "Look at that baby! It's sooo... small. Look at those fingernails."

He's Bret Easton Ellis without American Psycho. He's cool and sexy, good-looking for a writer. He has talent, but so rarely pushes himself past mediocrity it's like watching censored pornography. It's all build up, with no release. It's been twenty years; Ashcroft is overdue for a money shot. 

It wasn't fair, but it wasn't totally wrong. She wondered if Kevin knew it was Dan's fortieth birthday. It couldn't be a coincidence, but it reeked of Jonatton Yeah? The jabs at Dan's writing were easy to dismiss – Kevin Alexander was hardly a brilliant new voice – but it was the stabs at Dan's personal life that made Claire angry. 

After twenty years in Shoreditch, Dan's affected Northern accent is meant to remind us that he might be working at a trendy magazine, hobnobbing with such idiots as Madonna and Jay-Me, and dating a 'celebrity DJ,' but he's still an outsider.

Claire had been trying since she was a child to sound less regional, but Dan's accent had been ridiculous before he moved south. Even Claire had made fun of his inability to say more than the first letter of the word "the". She blamed it on the fact that he didn't watch enough telly. He only listened to singers who couldn't enunciate and his stoner friends who couldn't make their tongues work properly. 

Thinking Dan hobnobbed with Madonna was funny enough that it was hard to care if it made Dan sound like a prat. The mention of Jay-Me and the dig at Jones were at least based in reality. Jones was going to be opening some shows for Jay-Me, and if she could ever come up with a song Jones didn't hate, they were planning to record together. Jones wasn't nearly as interested in advancing his career as he was in trying to be polite to someone who desperately wanted to be taken seriously. Jones had never made an effort to be famous or to make any more money than he needed to keep himself alive and high as a kite. He'd reached a point where he could DJ in exchange for food, haircuts, and clothing vouchers, and people handed him drugs. Jones was content to be Shoreditch famous. His trips to Leeds with the Ashcrofts were the only times he ever left Shoreditch. He lived fifteen minutes from where he was born and yet remained so encapsulated in his own world, he managed to never run into anyone from his past. 

Dan did not come out in the nineties when he was starting out. He didn't come out when he was the toast of Sugar Ape. He waited until his daughter fixed him up with a sweet position to be honest about who he was...

That made Claire want to wring Kevin's neck. It was lazy bullshit. Dan was hardly a Lothario, but he hadn't had a single serious relationship before his late thirties. There were plenty of women to attest to Dan's life of heterosexuality. Sometimes Claire saw Dan staring at a beautiful young man with an intensity that carried no lust, but curiosity. He seemed to be waiting for the rest of his gayness to kick in. No one was more confused by Dan's sexual relationship with Jones than Dan (except maybe Jones), and it hurt to have someone present Dan as a coward for one of the bravest things he'd ever done: taking a chance on being happy.

The article was full of nonsense about 15Peter20 and Dan's stalker builder and how he had capitalized on his surprise daughter. There was a dig about Claire reaping the benefits as well, but that was nothing new. Lenore and Elizabeth had warned her all along that the business was not kind to successful women. Lenore had helped Claire find backing through a network of women, and it was Mars who had thrown the most free publicity at Claire. Lenore had the bankbook, but the people making Claire's career were other women in the field.

"Angel bum, you aren't still fuming about that piece of shit?" Nathan groaned. "Kevin Alexander was over before he began. No one gives a shit about his whinging. He' ain't part of Shoreditch, and he never will be. He's nothing, Sugar Muff. He's Stephen Baldwin, riding Alec's arse."

Nathan illustrated his point by acting out the imaginary, incestuous bumming.

Claire knew Nathan was right, but the truth was important. Even a shit magazine like Sugar Ape shouldn't be publishing outright falsehoods and slinging mud. Dan deserved to be criticized for his actual failings, not for being a bit too attractive for a serious writer. 

She felt better after writing a comment pointing out the outright fallacies in the article. She tried to keep it short, if not sweet. Nathan spent the entire time literally trying to get into her pants, but she felt better when she was done. 

xxx

Jonatton Yeah? had his iPhone in his hand, but he couldn't get a signal inside Sugar Ape, so he had to call his secretary to have her call Kevin and tell him to come to his office. He was starting to think his iPhone was a metaphor for modern society. It was sleek, beautiful, expensive, and full of potential... but it was a bit rubbish. 

"Kevin, pet, Dan Ashcroft is having a birthday party tonight. I need someone there," Jonatton explained as he tried to find a sweet spot where he could get a little reception to send a text. 

When he looked at Kevin, the man was looking at him with a rather dim expression. 

"I need you to cover it. Jay-Me will be there. I've heard rumors Madonna might drop by."

Kevin's face was still blank. 

"You, Kevin Alexander, need to take your little pad and go to Dan Ashcroft's party and write an article about it. It's what we pay you to do... You still seem confused. Let me see if there's an app that can help me explain..."

"I can't go to Dan Ashcroft's birthday party," Kevin sputtered. "We just ran an article about what a bogus asshole he is! I've already got his sister, daughter, and editor going for my throat..."

"You knew about Dan's guard bitches when you wrote the piece. You can't be surprised," Jonatton sneered, annoyed by Kevin's neediness. He wasn't nearly as fun as Dan. Dan would have called him a cunt and threatened physical violence. Depending on his current financial situation, he might have even said no.

"Rufus can give you the details..."

"Can't Rufus just take notes?" Kevin whinged.

"Rufus can't take notes, he can barely spell," Jonatton reminded him. "If you want to run with the big dogs, you can't run away with your tail between your legs. Find your balls, put them back in your pants and go to that fucking party."

Jonatton watched his newest bitch walk towards Rufus. The dumb fuck was actually going to do it. Claire Ashcroft was going to eat him alive. For the first time in a year, Jonatton smiled a real smile.

xxx

The strange thing about Madonna, other than the fact that she was at Dan's party, was that she was so tiny. Dan felt like he was talking to a garden gnome. Nodding at a garden gnome, really. He was long past stringing words together. Dan and Jones had discussed doing a guest list, but realized that if Nathan Barley was an invited guest (courtesy of Claire), who needed to be shut out? Dan's stalker would be a more welcomed presence.

Dan hadn't imagined anything worse than having Nathan Barley, Ned Smanks, and Rufus Onslatt with him for his fortieth birthday. That's why he couldn't so much as write a proposal for Eurodite. He had no imagination. Nathan Barley had danced with Jay-Me and Madonna, while Dan was forced to hide just to drink in peace at the circus that was meant to be his party. 

"Aye up," he yelled entirely too loudly when he saw Claire. His sister laughed and told him to quit putting on a Northern accent, no one was buying it anymore. Madonna laughed too hard, demonstrating that she definitely got the joke, but then she went away and Dan was happy again.

He was even happier when Jones magically appeared at his side.

"F.Y.I., Kevin Alexander showed up," Jones said as he lay down on the ground next to Dan. Dan didn't remember lying down. "Next party, we have to do a guest list. I don't care if it's bourgeois. There are too many weirdos around, these days."

Dan rolled on top of Jones, trying to arrange himself so he was pinning Jones down, but not crushing him.

"You look amazing," Dan observed, appreciating the way one of his old shirts had been converted into a Jones original. It had been loose on Dan, but Jones had tailored it skintight.

"It's not turning out quite like I planned."

"I'm drunk off my tits and on top of you," Dan pointed out. "Doesn't get much better than this."

He kissed Jones's neck and ran his hand along his ribs. 

"We're in public, Dan," Jones whispered. Dan looked around and realized they were in a hallway. He could have sworn they were in a room.

xxx

Kevin had already been threatened by Dan's very pregnant daughter while her boyfriend stood behind her, saying, "Get 'im, babe."

Now he was being verbally abused by Dan's sister. He'd had all the information he needed about two minutes after entering the party. It was a squat, but it wasn't the House of Jones. It was an abandoned factory, and there were little gothy stoners wandering around who clearly came with the squat, not the party.

Madonna was dancing with Jay-Me, and no one had seen Dan in hours. The building was teeming with adults pretending to be children, desperately trying to feel naughty.

"How dare you be so condescending?" Claire yelled. "What gives you the right to treat me like that, when all I'm trying to do is present the facts?"

Kevin had written a defensive response to her online critique of his article. He knew it was a mistake. He should have taken his time and carefully worded a response instead of flailing in his insecurity. 

"Are you really that fragile?" he retorted, demonstrating the slowness of his learning. "You can't handle a little sarcasm?"

"I can't handle being dismissed out of hand by some dipshit who's trying to make a career by stealing my brother's identity," Claire yelled back. "If you had bothered to talk to anyone who actually knew Dan..."

Kevin was rescued by a beautiful woman who looked vaguely familiar.

"Forget him, Claire," she yelled as she pulled the madwoman away. "That little shit isn't worth the effort."

The woman shot Kevin a weak smile before disappearing into the crowd. She was long gone when Kevin realized it must have been Claire's roommate, Elizabeth Marchand, i.e., the hottest young playwright in London. He hadn't been concerned about alienating the Ashcrofts when Jonatton Yeah? had encouraged him to take a stab at Dan's legacy, because he knew people were eager to see them taken down a notch. It hadn't occurred to him that there might be wider ramifications. Lenore Arthur had made a point of reminding him that she owned a large and influential publishing corporation and he was a person trying to make a living as a writer. She hadn't made any overt threats, but her meaning was clear. She was the kind of person who could ruin careers. It didn't matter that she knew nothing about literature. She had inherited a huge company and a shitload of money, and now she could make people like Kevin dance like puppets. 

He wasn't scared.

He was a little scared, but he knew he wasn't in real danger. He'd been played by Jonatton who had clearly been steering him wrong the entire time, he'd been suckered by idiots, he'd been yelled at by a pregnant woman, he'd closed a few career doors, but there were people who loved the article about Dan. Anything that would get his name on people's lips was worth a little torture. What bothered him most about the whole debacle was the sad realization that there was now no way in hell he was ever getting a date with Elizabeth Marchand.


	10. Trick Hip

Dan reeked of cigarettes and booze, and he could barely stand on his own. He looked so much like the old Dan, it tugged at Jones's heart. No one was happier to see Dan living in a way that might allow him to see fifty than Jones, but he sometimes missed his old train-wreck flatmate. Taking care of Dan had made Jones feel useful. Now that Dan didn't need a buffer between him and Claire and could usually manage to get himself dressed and undressed on his own, Jones felt like he had a lot of time on his hands.

"What the fuck happened tonight?" Dan slurred. "Why the fuck were there celebrities at my party? Crap celebrities? And Nathan Barley?"

"And your pregnant daughter," Jones couldn't help but add.

Dan giggled hysterically. "What the fuck happened to my life? Claire is dating Nathan Barley, and I haven't jumped in front of a train."

"You're getting mellow in your old age," Jones sighed. "Do you want to take a nice beach holiday? Maybe you could take up gardening..."

Dan growled and tossed Jones on the bed. 

"I'll show you old," Dan promised in a husky voice. "If my trick hip holds out..."

Dan slowly unbuttoned his shirt in a striptease that was supposed to be funny, but was actually pretty fucking hot.

"Christ, I love you, Dan."

Dan looked lost for a moment, but then he figured out where he needed to be: on top of Jones.

He was drunk enough to not be in any kind of hurry, despite having been hard since Dan had tried to mount him in the hallway. He ran his fingers through Dan's sweaty hair and licked his salty shoulder.

"Kinky," Dan teased.

"You have no idea how many times I wanted to do that, back in the day."

"Why didn't you?" Dan asked. He was too drunk to possibly remember Jones's answer if he gave one, or to appreciate the significance of his own question, so Jones let it go. In two years, Dan had never asked how Jones had felt about him before Dan had made his move. He must have known Jones was attracted from the beginning. Jones had no delusions about his ability to hide his feelings.

Jones simply moaned as Dan worked his way down his body and to his cock. Jones had been on the receiving end of plenty of blowjobs, but there was no one like Dan. Dan pussyfooted around so much in life, but he dove into a blowie like his life depended on it. When they'd begun their sexual relationship, Dan had been a little distant at times, too caught up in his own thoughts to fully let go. Now he could just throw Jones on the bed and deep throat his cock like he hadn't a care in the world.

He only paused his oral attack for a moment, to suck on his own fingers. Jones moaned before Dan even touched his arse.

It was hard to smirk with a mouthful of manhood, but Dan was looking distinctly smug.

Dan asked Jones what he was in the mood for, as though there could be any doubt. Dan's blowies were for quiet nights in (or semi-public places where they needed to be quick). When Dan was drunk and reeking of smoke, it was a night for bummin'. Anything else was a waste of Dan's sloppy and indifferent manliness. Dan had no idea why he was a dude magnet, and that was how it should be. Dan was at his best when he had no idea what he was doing right. The closest Jones had ever come to not feeling attracted to Dan had been when he was still at Sugar Ape and Jonatton Yeah? had found the perfect way to torture Dan: by making him take care of himself. The electric cigarette had been a good thing, but the spray tan... The spray tan managed to go back in time and squash the hard-on Jones had had the first time he'd laid eyes on Dan Ashcroft. 

Considering Dan's level of inebriation, Jones wasn't going to push him to use a condom if he forgot. Dan had been checked out, and Jones was pretty certain Sasha was the kind of person who took care of her health, but Dan was still using johnnies until he had a follow-up and a full clean bill of health. 

He was almost disappointed when Dan produced a foil packet. It must have shown, because Dan's face was suddenly forlorn.

Jones used his thumb to try and rub the worry lines out of Dan's forehead. 

"Past is the past, right, Dan?"

Dan shook his head no.

"Not really," Dan mused. "I kind of liked the Alexander article..."

Jones shook his head in disbelief. Even for Dan, it was a mental statement. The Alexander article was a hatchet job, and it wasn't even well-written.

"It's an interesting narrative," Dan continued. "It gave me some ideas for a book."

That was more promising. Jones took the condom from Dan and ripped it open with his teeth as he encouraged Dan to keep talking.

"Erudite is giving me money to write a book. They don't really care what book. They just want me to write them a 'cool' book. I really am part of this bizarre Nathan Barley world."

"You're hovering above it," Jones amended.

"No, I'm on my knees, crawling through it. Alexander is right. If I looked different... Writers really aren't meant to be judged by their looks, are they? If I were uglier, I wouldn't have gotten where I did, and if I were better looking, I'd be..."

"You couldn't be better looking," Jones assured him, stroking his stubbled cheek. "You're beautiful."

"You're high," was Dan's not entirely inaccurate response. 

"But you're still beautiful. Now stop yapping and fuck me."

Dan wiggled his eyebrows. "That's going in the book. Chapter one."

Jones managed to wrestle Dan onto the bed and straddled his waist.

"I always wanted to be someone's muse," Jones said as he lowered himself on Dan's latex-covered cock. It was true; he found inspiration in so many things. He liked to imagine himself inspiring someone else.

Dan Ashcroft, professional wordsmith, said, "Jesus fucking Christ. Fuck me."

"That's some inspiration, right there," Jones teased, trying not to let his eyes go all wonky as he took Dan's length. Dan always looked a bit surprised when they were having sex, like he was expecting someone else. Given that Dan had spent the first thirty-eight years of his life apparently heterosexual, maybe he was. 

Later, when they were sweaty and breathless and ready to pass out, Dan stroked Jones's hair and kissed the top of his head. Maybe Dan was still a little surprised his lover had a dick, but most of the time, he seemed pretty chuffed about the arrangement.


	11. A Bit of Color

At first, Lenny had hesitated, but she couldn't actually explain why it was a bad idea, so they went with it. They named the twins Marilyn and Arthur Smanks.

Lenore had tried to prepare him for the babies, so he wouldn't be confused when they came out. Ned had to remind her that he had once been a biracial baby and had pictures of himself when he'd been all white expect for his balls and ears. He was well glad that hadn't lasted. That would have made things really awkward in the showers, and when he got off with birds.

It wouldn't have been that bad with Lenore, though. She didn't seem bothered by anything about Ned, really. She often made a face she said was 'quizzical.' Ned wasn't sure what it had to do with quiz shows, but it wasn't an angry face. If Ned had looked like Nathan Barley with his clothes on but was rocking some dark chocolate junk, Lenore would have looked quizzical, but she wouldn't have laughed. She was special that way.

The jury was still out on how much flavor the babies would have. Marilyn was pretty pale, but Arthur had those big black balls. Ned had been secretly hoping for a boy with his own buttery caramel skin color and a pasty white girl, like in cartoons where all the girls take after their mums and boys after their dads. It would be yet another parallel between their lives and Lady and the Tramp.

Lenore said it was important for new parents to get a lot of help, and Ned was amazed by how many people volunteered to step up when he told them he would be spending a lot of time alone with the babies. They had a schedule for when people would stay at the house, so they didn't have to put up twenty people at a time. 

Elizabeth and Rufus took the first shift, because they both had a lot of little brothers and sisters and were well skilled in the art of changing nappies. Lenore was worried that Rufus was too stupid to take care of a baby (she used the word eccentric instead of stupid, but Ned wasn't so eccentric he couldn't tell what she meant). Elizabeth was super smart and Lenny trusted her, so she could get a little sleep when Elizabeth was in charge. Rufus was mainly in charge of food and nappies. Lenny had kicked up a fuss when he brought them sushi until she realized he'd actually done a good job n'all, getting only cooked and vegetable sushi. 

Claire and Nathan came next. Claire had done some babysitting as a little girl, and when Nathan was seventeen, his dad had a baby with his brand new seventeen-year-old wife, so he knew a thing or two about babies as well. Even better, they brought over Jay-Me with them one day, so the babies already had a photo op with celebrity before they were a week old. Jay-Me had lots of little brothers and was well skilled with babies. Her singing voice was good, even without help from a studio, and she sang loads of songs to the twins. It was like a personal concert, except she didn't do any of her hits, not even "Lonely Girl". She just sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and other kiddie songs. Having a celebrity singing kiddie songs made Ned feel like he was on the real Sesame Street, one of his lifelong dreams. Being a daddy was brilliant.

Dan and Jones were the most recent installation at the house. Dan said he'd tried to sell Claire when was she was born and hadn't been allowed near her after that, and Jones didn't know anything about babies. Ned had to show them everything while Lenny slept, like how to hold their wobbly heads up and which parts of their skulls were still squishy. Lenore was breastfeeding both babies and it was making her tired and even weepier than when she'd been preggers. She didn't even need to see a sad commercial to burst into tears. Ned made sure everyone looked like they knew what they were doing when she was awake, so that she could relax once in a while. 

Both babies took to Dan straight away. Ned noticed all babies were like girls: they liked men who didn't pay them any mind. Dan rarely held the babies, but if he was close enough for their little eyes to see, the twins would stare at him while Ned and Jones went about the business of keeping them alive. 

They didn't need to be distracted when they were with Lenore. Somehow, the babies knew their mummy and knew they could trust her. Lenore said it was because she was dribbling milk everywhere like a "disgusting fountain," but Ned thought it was more. It wasn't just the babies that were more relaxed when Lenore was around. All of them: Elizabeth, Rufus, Claire, Nathan, Dan, Jones, and Ned breathed a sigh of relief when she came in the room, because she was a proper grown-up.

Dan and Claire's parents were coming soon to spend a whole week. Ned figured it was a good idea since they'd raised two kids who were well smart and talented and successful, but he was also a bit worried, because the Ashcrofts were scary. It would be hard to potty train someone who could stare him down without saying a word.

xxx

Jay-Me had learned a lot in England. She loved it so much, she'd decided to start spelling color with a u.

She wasn't as happy with the article in E-lite as she'd hoped, but Claire assured her it was an important part of her "character arc," and it would make her film all the more interesting. 

Jay-Me couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it first. A documentary was obviously the way to go. Once again, Madonna had already paved the way; Jay-Me only needed to follow. Jay-Me had seen Claire Ashcroft's "Down in Londontown" so many times, she could understand nearly all the accents. The documentary about Jay-Me had been Nathan's idea, but it was Claire that would do all the artistic stuff. She seemed to have a real understanding of the person Jay-Me wanted to be, maybe because she had some of the same ambitions. 

Jay-Me liked Nathan, even if he was a bit of a jerk sometimes. The first time they'd met, he had tried to get Jay-Me into bed and then cried like a baby and begged her not to tell his girlfriend when she told him he didn't stand a chance. When she'd realized his "girlfriend" was Dan's sister, Jay-Me had been torn. After meeting Claire, she knew to keep her mouth shut. If there was one thing Jay-Me had learned from her mother, it was that you couldn't tell a woman that she was wasting her time on a loser. Sometimes a girl just needed to beat her head against a wall for a while before the truth sank in. 

And Claire looked like she knew how to throw a punch.

In the meantime, Claire was filming Jay-Me as she toured London and gained inspiration from the culture and the landscape. While trying to find a song they could work on together, Jones had pointed out that all of her songs were "shit." She'd cried, but then he had brought Dan in to give her a few writing tips. He'd told her that she didn't need to write about her feelings, that they would come out in her writing no matter what she wrote about. He told her she could write about shoes and it would be personal, because it would be her point of view on shoes.

So she wrote a song about her Manolos. It was the song Jones had agreed to help produce. When she'd played it for Dan, he'd said, "There you go. That's a song about... something." It hadn't been released yet, but there were "leaked" versions in clubs all over the world.

When she wrote the song, it was about the one pair of Manolos in her closet and why they were significant. Now she had a dozen pairs, so she could be shot all over the world wearing them. Life was funny like that. The song was about her real life, but now she needed to change her life to be more like her song.

Jay-Me had the junkie choir open for her at Wembley. They went on before Jones. Jay-Me was on her way to being a significant artist.

xxx

"When life blows,  
put on those Manolos,  
like the Sex in the City hoes,  
'cause those bitches got style."

Dan smiled (and cringed) as the sound of twisting metal and nightmares wove through the cheerful melody. Even the radio version of the song was a bit scary, though it had nothing on the full-out, nightmare inducing, properly brostep club version Jones had produced. 

Jones had been getting offers from other artists, but he didn't really care for recording his music. He said it was like mounting a dead animal to preserve its beauty: equal parts creepy, morbid, and sad as hell. Jones preferred his music to be alive. He also had no interest in promoting himself. Dan had been willing to pack up his life and follow Jones wherever he went. He could write for any rag; he just needed to be with Jones. They had toyed with moving to the States, until Lenore decided to stay in London. Jones never wanted to be too far from the twins. Now that Lenore was going to the London School of Economics full-time, Jones was often at the Arthur-Smanks home. It was a gorgeous house, and completely baby-proofed. Dan hated being there alone, because he couldn't figure out any of the childproof locks. If he ever really wanted to quit drinking, he would dry out at Lenore's. He couldn't even climb out of a window; they were all secured in case of an "Eric Clapton situation."

Dan wanted to ask Jones to produce a track for Madonna, in exchange for her burning her 15Peter20 shot of Dan pissing on a wall, but he'd done enough to fuck up their relationship. In comparison to being without Jones, his humiliation seemed minor. He hoped that when Jones read his book, he would understand why Dan was so bad at being a boyfriend. 

The book was helping Dan understand himself a little better. He'd taken Lenore to Leeds to do some research on his past. He'd been surprised by how poorly he remembered his own childhood. He didn't remember having such good grades, or so many friends. He'd tailored his memories to suit the fuck-up he became, but there had been a time when Dan had actually made his parents proud. 

Then he'd turned fifteen, and the self-loathing began. It ate at him night and day until he started drinking and smoking pot and doing everything he could to drown out the constant negative voice in his head saying he would never be good enough. He'd never really moved past his adolescent approach to coping.

Lenore said he was depressed and should look into a combination of talk therapy and antidepressants, in addition to working on his substance abuse issues. Then she gave him a hug and said she loved him the way he was. Then they sat in awkward silence, because Lenore had used the L-word. It had been while Lenore was still pregnant and chock-full of hormones, so they had agreed to ignore it. Dan had tried to break the tension by showing Lenore some photos of himself when he was young. He dopily agreed to show her pictures of himself at sixteen, not realizing what she was after.

He waited for her to laugh as she took in lanky, scrawny Dan with his oversized head and hands and his longish, floppy hair.

"Wow," she murmured. "You were..."

"An ugly fuck?" Dan supplied.

"No. You were cute. It's just..."

"What?"

Lenore shrugged. "You look so young and innocent, and all I can think is... gross."

It was fair. Dan had no idea why Marilyn Arthur had chosen him to sleep with, or if her pregnancy had been a mistake or intentional. She was a brilliant and respected author, and Dan had looked like an animated scarecrow. Maybe Marilyn saw potential in him. Maybe she just figured he was chock-full of semen.

Like getting a baby sister and having sex with a dude, finding out he had a daughter had sounded horrible but turned out to be amazing.

"No more store brand,  
mock-ups, knockoffs..."

"God, this song is everywhere," Sasha groaned as she dropped into the seat across from Dan. "Is Jones happy, or is he sick of it?"

Dan shrugged. "A little of both."

Sasha had left E-lite to start her own PR company. E-lite paid for her to represent Dan, so he now had a new PA, and his old PA was his new PR agent. Sometimes he felt like that Talking Heads song Ned and Lenore liked so much. 

How did I get here?

They only met during the day and in public. There had never been another incident, but Sasha had decided to play it safe. She was happily married and expecting another child. She wasn't giving herself any opportunities to fall back on her Sugar Ape ways. Jones had been all for Dan maintaining professional ties with Sasha. 

Jones was so perfect, Dan sometimes wanted to shrink him down and carry him around in his pocket. Pocket Jones. Love made Dan go a bit weird in the head.

"You need to write about the song, and you need to write about your sister's film. This is brilliant cross-promotion. You'll be a household name before your book is finished," Sasha began, prepared as usual. "How's the writing going, anyway?"

Dan shrugged, knowing Sasha would take that to mean the worst. He'd actually written three hundred pages so far, but he was keeping it quiet. There were two hundred pages he might end up burning. 

Sasha looked stern.

"Dan. You're a good writer. You have an interesting story and a voice that brings people in. Don't doubt yourself so much," she said gently. "I believe in you."

"Other than telling me what to write about and when, clearly the job of a public relations expert..." Dan waited for physical abuse, but simply got an icy stare. He would have preferred a punch. "Why am I here?"

"The new Kevin Alexander article. Do you want to release an opinion or stay silent?"

Dan smiled to himself.

"I like it. Can I officially like it?"

"Can you expound upon that opinion?" Sasha asked.

"Not really," Dan admitted. "I just thought it was a good article. Good for him."

"And how are the grandbabies?"

Dan flinched at the word. It was still too bizarre. 

"Grandbabies..." he sighed. "They're wonderful. They're so tiny and... They're so tiny. You can't hate them."

"Babies are like that," Sasha agreed.

They chatted a bit more, but they spent most of the lunch in a companionable silence. They hadn't been kids together, but working at Sugar Ape was like being a child. Their shared past had its roots in childish impulses and indulgences. Dan was still indulging, but they weren't the same people they had been. They were adults. Dan was surprised to find he didn't hate it.


	12. The New Dan Ashcroft

What have I learned in my first year at Sugar Ape? Yes, it's Sugar Ape, not SugaRape. What have I learned? I'm not really sure. I sure as hell didn't learn anything about Dan Ashcroft...

Jonatton Yeah? smiled at the glossy page. Kevin Alexander had finally delivered. Even Dan Ashcroft was on the record as having liked the piece. 

I stood on the outside of the in crowd, trying to peer in. What I found was that the in crowd is full of people like the Ashcrofts (who desperately wish they were not part of it, because their goals are so much loftier than the common man), Nathan Barleys and Doug Rockets (who run the crowd and yet are constantly and desperately seeking reassurance that they are still part of the crowd), and a bunch of idiots in dumb clothes. No one is really on the inside of the Shoreditch crowd. It's a culture of isolation.

It was melodramatic, but there was a hint of intelligence. Kevin was becoming world weary and humble.

Someday, I hope to meet Dan Ashcroft and ask him what the fuck he was thinking when he was at Sugar Ape. Why would someone who inspired such devotion in his readers allow himself to be debased and humiliated? Was he really that skint?

Jonatton smiled and said to no one, "He was that skint and that drunk."

I'd like to ask him how he kept his head in all this madness, and how he got out of it. The party has to end sometime...

Kevin was twenty-two and world weary.

And what the fuck was Madonna doing at his fortieth birthday party? She looked like a wax figure of herself.

And he was getting mean.

At least there was free booze.

Kevin was keeping a flask in his desk. Nathan Barley had created a video of Kevin being yelled at by women and called it, "Dick at a Party." It was a YouTube sensation. Strange women would yell in Kevin's face to make 'response videos.' 

I'm surrounded by buffoons. Stanley Knives has added 'Geek Pie' to their regular trainings, because so many people want to wear the look ironically. Eventually, the arseholery will form a black hole and we'll all be sucked in. Personally, I look forward to being sucked into an endless vacuum where I will never again have to hear some idiot sing about how she used to wear cheap shoes while two compactors make love in the background. At least, I assume that's the sound DJ Jones was going for...

Jonatton enjoyed a celebratory single malt. He finally had his new Dan Ashcroft.


End file.
